The Oxford Handbook of Education and Globalization (Oxford Library of International Social Policy) 9780197570685, 9780197570715, 9780197570708, 0197570682

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T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f

E DU C AT ION A N D G L OBA L I Z AT ION

OXFORD LIBR ARY OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL POLICY Editors-​i n-​C hief Douglas Besharov and Neil Gilbert In collaboration with the International Network for Social Policy Teaching and Research

Oxford Handbook Governance and Management for Social Policy Edited by Karen J. Baehler Oxford International Handbook of Family Policy: A Life-​Course Perspective Edited by Mary Daly, Birgit Pfau-​Effinger, Neil Gilbert, and Douglas J. Besharov Oxford International Handbook of Child Protection Systems Edited by Jill Duerr Berrick, Neil Gilbert, and Marit Skivenes Oxford Handbook of Education and Globalization Edited by Paola Mattei, Xavier Dumay, Eric Mangez, and Jacqueline Behrend Oxford Handbook of Program Design and Implementation Evaluation Edited by Anu Rangarajan

the Oxford Handbook of

EDUCATION AND GLOBALIZATION Edited by

PAOLA MATTEI, XAVIER DUMAY, ERIC MANGEZ, and JACQUELINE BEHREND

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Mattei, Paola, 1974, author. | Dumay, Xavier,​author. | Mangez, Eric, author. | Behrend, Jacqueline, 1975,​author. Title: The Oxford handbook of education and globalization /​Paola Mattei, Xavier Dumay, Eric Mangez, Jacqueline Behrend. Other titles: Handbook of education and globalization Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Series: Oxford library of international social policy | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022054459 (print) | LCCN 2022054460 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197570685 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197570715 | ISBN 9780197570708 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Education and globalization. | Education and state. | Education—​Social aspects. Classification: LCC LC191 .D747 2023 (print) | LCC LC191 (ebook) | DDC 379—​dc23/​eng/​20221216 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​202​2054​459 LC ebook record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​202​2054​460 DOI: 10.1093/​oxfordhb/​9780197570685.001.0001 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Contents

Preface  List of Contributors 

xi xix

PA RT I   S O C IA L T H E ORY, G L OBA L I Z AT ION , A N D E D U C AT ION Introduction to Part I  Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez

3

Section I: Culture, Globalization, and Education 1. Globalizing Nation States and National Education Projects  Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee

29

2. An Anthropological Perspective on Globalization and Schooling  Kathryn Anderson-​Levitt

51

3. Historical Institutionalism in Education and Globalization  Lukas Graf

76

4. Education in a Postliberal World Society  Jared Furuta, John W. Meyer, and Patricia Bromley

96

5. World Culture, Education, and Organization  Minju Choi, Hannah K. D’Apice, Nadine Ann Skinner, and Patricia Bromley

119

6. Globalization, New Institutionalisms, and the Political Dimension  Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons

147

7. Globalization, Cultural Logics, and the Teaching Profession  Gerald K. LeTendre

170

vi   Contents

8. Higher Education and Organizational Theory: Systems, Fields, Markets, and Populations in an Increasingly Global Context  Jeroen Huisman

191

Section II: Structural Approaches to Globalization in Education 9. The Globalization of Expertise?: Epistemic Governance, Quantification, and the Consultocracy  Jenny Ozga

213

10. Globalization, Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus  Maarten Simons

228

11. Field Theory Beyond the Nation State  Julian Hamann

248

12. Inclusive Education, Globalization, and New Philosophical Perspectives on Social Justice  Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez

267

13. Globalization, Uncertainty, and the Returns to Education Over the Life Course in Modern Societies  Hans-​Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld

287

14. Globalization of Education and the Sociology of Elites  Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten 15. Mobilizing Whiteness: Race, Futurity, and Globalization of Higher Education  Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards

304

328

Section III: Systems Theory, Globalization, and Education 16. Education in a Functionally Differentiated World Society  Raf Vanderstraeten

351

17. Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon  Giancarlo Corsi

367

18. The Rats Under the Rug: The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context  Pieter Vanden Broeck

385

Contents   vii

19. Redrawing What Counts as Education: The Impact of the Global Early Childhood Education Program on German Kindergarten  Christine Weinbach

404

20. The University as a World Organization  Rudolf Stichweh

424

21. Small Worlds: Homeschooling and the Modern Family  Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman

443

PA RT I I   P OL IC Y C HA L L E N G E S A N D I M P L IC AT ION S OF G L OBA L P R E S SU R E S ON NAT IONA L E D U C AT ION SYS T E M S Introduction to Part II  Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend

461

Section IV: International Organizations and Education Policy 22. The Expansion of Education in and Across International Organizations  Kerstin Martens, Dennis Niemann, and David Krogmann

481

23. The OECD’s Boundary Work in Education in the United States and Brazil: A Historical Comparative Analysis of Two Federal States  Christian Ydesen and Nanna Ramsing Enemark

498

24. Playing God: Education Data Visualizations and the Art of World-​Making  Sotiria Grek

518

Section V: The Responses of National Education Systems to Global Pressures 25. The PISA Pendulum: Political Discourse and Education Reform in the Age of Global Reference Societies  Louis Volante

539

26. Why Globalization Hardly Affects Education Systems: A Historical Institutionalist View  Julian L. Garritzmann and Susanne Garritzmann

554

27. Policy Advice and Policy Advisory Systems in Education  Maria Tullia Galanti

576

viii   Contents

28. The Formation and Development of a Norwegian Accountability System  Astrid Tolo

594

Section VI: The Massification of Secondary Education 29. Diffusion of Mass Education: Pathways to Isomorphism  Fabian Besche-​Truthe, Helen Seitzer, and Michael Windzio

615

30. The Politics of Equality in Secondary Education Across Wealthy Postwar Democracies  Jane R. Gingrich, Anja Giudici, and Daniel McArthur

633

31. Examining the Impact of Educational Reforms on Schooling and Competences in PIAAC  Lorenzo Cappellari, Daniele Checchi, and Marco Ovidi

657

32. Educational Expansion and Inequality: School in Italy in the Second Part of the 20th Century  672 Gabriele Ballarino and Nazareno Panichella Section VII: Globalization of Higher Education and Science 33. Can Non-​Western Countries Escape From Catch-​Up Modernity? The Troubling Case of Japan’s Education Reforms in a Global Era  Takehiko Kariya 34. The Global Scale in Higher Education and Research  Simon Marginson

695 711

35. The Globalization of Science: The Increasing Power of Individual Scientists  Marek Kwiek

728

36. China’s Responses to Globalization and Higher Education Reforms: Challenges and Policy Implications  Ka Ho Mok, Guo Guo Ke, and Zhen Tian

762

37. Reforming Higher Education in India in Pursuit of Excellence, Expansion, and Equity  Jandhyala B. G. Tilak

783

Contents   ix

38. The Rehabilitation of the Concept of Public Good: Reappraising the Attacks From Liberalism and Neoliberalism From a Poststructuralist Perspective  Mark Olssen

824

Section VIII: Latin America 39. Educational Challenges in Latin America: An Outline From Conquest to COVID-​19  Laurence Whitehead

869

40. Technocrats and Unions in the Politics of Reforming Teacher Careers in Colombia and Peru  Ricardo Cuenca, Sandra García, and Ben Ross Schneider

891

41. Subnational Variations in Education and Policy Innovation in Argentina  Jacqueline Behrend

911

42. Economic Globalization and Evolution of Education Spending in the Brazilian Federation, 2013–​2019  Cristiane Batista and Steven Dutt-​Ross

938

43. Does Globalization Reward Education? Evidence for Mexico  Ingrid Bleynat and Luis Monroy-​Gómez-​Franco 44. Factious Education Politics in Chile, 1981–​2021: Enduring Contention Over Privatization, Inequality, and Quality  Alejandra Mizala and Ben Ross Schneider Index

956

985 1005

Preface

The Globalization-​E ducation Nexus: Social Theory and Comparative Politics This Handbook deals with education and globalization. Building on two disciplinary approaches, social theory and comparative politics, it aims to contribute to the conceptual clarification and empirical discussion of how the processes of globalization and education interact. Bringing the two notions together in the analysis is far from evident. The categories commonly mobilized to think about education have long been associated with the notion of the nation state, but by themselves are insufficient for an understanding of how globalization plays out in this particular field. The historical development of school education is indeed closely linked to state building (Tilly, 1990). It operated as a symbol and an institution for the rejection of premodern hierarchies and the construction of what many have learned to understand as “national societies” and democratic political systems. The ordinary meaning of notions such as “state” and “society” tend to remain shaped by this historical and institutional process: Countries are conceived of as societies and political systems; societies as governed by states; and states as the ultimate locus of public authority governing complex “political conflicts” (Schattschneider, 1975) and policymaking arenas dealing with the needs and problems of their citizens. Each national “society” is assumed to develop a bundle of domains (law, economy, education, etc.) and to (re)produce its own culture, its own language(s), and its own traditions. Comparative politics deals with interactions within political systems and focuses specifically on internal political structures, actors, and processes. It analyzes these interactions empirically by describing and explaining their variation across national, regional and local political systems. The notions of sovereignty and the state are at the heart of comparative politics as a discipline (Caramani, 2020). In contrast, some social scientists have criticized this mode of description and analysis for its “methodological nationalism” (Beck, 2000), that is, the well-​anchored assumption that the nation state is the natural social and political unit of the modern world. Social theory responded to the critique. Some scholars started speaking of “world society” (Luhmann, 1997; Meyer et al., 1997) while others argued for dropping

xii   Preface the concept of society altogether (Urry, 2000). The notion of the sovereign nation state capable of governing autonomously the key domains of society came to be regarded as insufficiently sophisticated and in need of refinement by some scholars in international relations. Notions that had long been treated as equivalents have increasingly been distinguished: not only “nation state” and “society” but also “nation state,” “political authority,” and even “sovereignty.” Both social theory and comparative politics, the two key disciplines mobilized respectively in Part I and Part II of this Handbook, have grappled with these theoretical challenges in their own way. It could be argued that social theory concerned itself with the concept of society and its postnationalistic reconceptualization, while comparative politics rather focused on developing a more complex view on political authority and sovereignty by acknowledging new emerging policy arenas and self-​organizing governance processes at work at multiple levels beyond and within the nation state (Hooghe & Marks, 2020). Nowadays, most scholars in the field of comparative politics support the idea that fundamental transformations in the form of governance have taken place and take diverging paths in different countries. The critique of methodological nationalism proved particularly relevant for those scholars of social theory who, following Durkheim or Parsons, for example, still considered society as a normatively integrated national unit. Several social theorists have now broken away from this assumption. No one will deny that the economy constitutes a central domain of society, nor that it has become a global process, which states struggle to regulate. In the domains of education and education policy as well, it is not difficult to see that a number of structural and semantic evolutions have spread globally and tend to diffuse themselves across states. As historians and neoinstitutionalists had already shown in the 1970s, the expansion of (national) education itself is a global process: Within a few decades, education systems grew all over the world; all nations, rich or poor, from the north or the south, democratic or authoritarian, have somehow put in place an educational system. The observation of wide differences in the success, or even the shape, of such attempts and in the way school education is organized in different national or local contexts does not make it less of a global process. The opposite could actually be argued: Differences themselves can come to light and be observed only thanks to their being part of a global phenomenon. Through processes that remain debated (cultural isomorphism, capitalism, functional differentiation), education imposed itself upon all states across the globe. Observations of this kind have led social theory to dissociate the concept of society from the notion of the nation. A number of theories have been developed to describe a global society evolving across borders. Part I of this Handbook is dedicated to presenting, discussing, and comparing three such theories of globalization and their implications for our understanding of education and education policy. In contrast, the state as an actor and institution (Skocpol, 2013) is at the very heart of comparative politics. Comparative politics concerns itself with discussing complexities and variations across countries, in order to illuminate the persistence of political contestation and analyze the impact of global norms and ideas on local institutions and national education systems. Providing an account of the many ways in which the field of comparative politics has evolved in the last few decades is beyond what is possible in the

Preface   xiii context of this brief preface. One key development consisted in elaborating a more complex, less unified, and “transformationalist” view of the state by acknowledging the fragmentation and distribution of its functions among distinct instances and levels (Caramani, 2020; Held et al. 1999). Multilevel governance is a key concept intended to describe and analyze this distribution of functions across various arenas. Decentralization, especially of education, and federalization redistributed power and resources between levels of government and empowered territorially based actors (Gibson, 2004). Comparative historical analysis and historical institutionalism show how domestic conflicts shape the institutional framework within which globalized public policy reforms are then produced. These theoretical advances proved particularly useful in the field of education, where resources (law, money) often stay tightly coupled to the national level, while policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation have become increasingly distributed among both international organizations and subnational and local decision-​makers (Almond et al., 2004). This means that similar policies are adopted and implemented in diverse ways across countries and even within countries. Many chapters in Part II of this Handbook gravitate around this global constellation, whether they focus on global reforms and the ideas put forward by international organizations (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], World Bank, European Union), on evaluation processes (like Program for International Student Assessment [PISA], Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study [TIMSS], university rankings, etc.), or examine the ways in which nation states or local actors adopt, implement, or resist global ideas and reforms. Several chapters elaborate on the multilevel governance approach that presupposes a high level of variations across countries and regions of the world as far as the effects of globalization are concerned. Other chapters interrogate the globalization-​education nexus from a perspective of international political economy.

Structure of the Book The Handbook is divided into two main Parts that reflect two distinct disciplinary approaches to the relation between globalization and education: social theory and comparative politics. Together, these two approaches seek to provide a comprehensive overview of how globalization and education interact to result in distinct and varying outcomes across world regions. Part I presents, discusses, and compares three major attempts to theorize the process of globalization and its relation to education: the neoinstitutionalist theorization of world culture (with John Meyer as an emblematic, though not unique, figure); the materialist and domination perspectives (well represented by Wallerstein’s world system theory); and Luhmann’s theory of world society. While highlighting their specific merits, key differences, and shared findings, we pay attention in particular to how each of these three branches of social theory accounts for the emergence, evolution, and

xiv   Preface problematic consequences of the globalization of education. The theoretical efforts involved in Part I of the Handbook are also intended to help gain some analytical distance from the often-​emotional topic of globalization. Section I draws on globalization understood as a cultural process (change) emphasizing culturally embedded ideational factors. Education and human activity more generally are considered as highly embedded in collective cultural patterns. In this paradigm, the dominant theory is the neoinstitutional approach typically associated with the theoretical work of John Meyer and his colleagues, as situated within new institutionalism in sociology, which defines modernity and globalization as a cultural rationalization relying on isomorphic processes. However, subsequent strands of research have developed that draw on anthropological studies of school and learning. These studies explore cultural variations in educational norms and practices, and employ distinctive theoretical constructs but draw heavily on research about cultural dynamics at the local, national, and global levels. This section also incorporates the contributions of historical new institutionalism, field theories, and new-​institutionalist policy studies as a way to highlight the theoretical plurality involved in this field of study and to bring forth conceptions of globalization insisting on cultural complexity and fragmentation. Such a view of cultural globalization as plural, fragmented, and conflictual is also presented in the recent developments of the world culture theory looking at problematic consequences of globalization resulting from the crisis of the modern project of rationalization and the spread of illiberal contestations of the modern cultural order. Section II builds on world system theory even if some of its chapters do not refer explicitly to Wallerstein’s seminal work. What brings them together is the structuralist perspective they bring to the study of globalization in education, their focus on power relations and discursive and material domination, and their interest in democratic struggle and resistance in globalizing capitalist economies. They include post-​Marxism and post-​Fordism, Foucauldian socio-​historical approaches to forms of power in modernity and late modernity, the Bourdieusian theory of social fields, and the political economy of education in advanced capitalist societies. This section looks in particular at how theories forged in the “structural” context of the nation state and its core institutions (representative democracy, capitalist economy, Fordist organization of work, and the knowledge regime of science) may be extended to capture the reconfiguration of education’s structural embeddedness and its distributional effects and to renew the critical perspective on education and inequalities. Section III focuses on sociological systems theory. Systems theory has a long interdisciplinary history. Its early developments in sociology, most notably with the work of Talcott Parsons, could not avoid the trap of methodological nationalism and have been widely criticized for their functionalist orientation. In the context of this Handbook, we therefore choose to focus on the most recent developments of sociological systems theory and its most important figure, Niklas Luhmann. Breaking away from the two pitfalls of methodological nationalism and functionalism, Luhmann’s sociology develops a theory of world society that contrasts with neoinstitutionalist and structuralist approaches: It does not start with culture, or with power, but rather with functional

Preface   xv differentiation. Moreover, in sharp contrast with most existing approaches of functional differentiation (Durkheim’s division of labor; Weber’s spheres; Parsons’ systems, Bourdieu’s fields, etc.), Luhmann considers modern society as a genuine heterarchy of coevolving, hardly coordinated, global systems. Education appears as a global function system next to others, endlessly dealing with its turbulent and changing environment. Part II of the Handbook analyzes the political and institutional factors that shape the adoption of global reforms at the national and local level of governance, emphasizing the role of different contexts in shaping policy outcomes. The chapters engage with the existing debates of globalization mainly in the field of public policy and comparative politics by analyzing contemporary education reforms in a multilevel governance perspective. They explore the social, political, and economic implications of globalization for national systems of education, their organizations, and institutions. Global education policies promoted by international actors and organizations are filtered through local contexts that mediate global processes within countries, regions, and local communities. In Part II, we focus on advancing our understanding of the complex system of economic and political relationships between the local and the global (Almond et al., 2004) that have direct and indirect implications for the policy and politics of education. Education is a policy field dominated by a constant struggle for resources, and power among actors, which creates the institutional framework within which globalized public policy is designed and implemented locally. We therefore need to simultaneously capture national developments and globalized education policies and norms. Section IV contributes to mapping the historical development of international organizations onto the field of education. Many organizations, such as the OECD, have become leading advocates of education accountability worldwide, and others have been key actors in the development of the educational rights of children in Africa. The scope of their actions varies, such as their focus, which ranges from economistic and evidence-​ based programs to more holistic and humanistic ones. The chapters interrogate the role of international organizations in setting the policy agenda, and how they are capable of informing education reforms worldwide. They also show the limitations of such process of shaping local agendas, by emphasizing variations in national and local responses. Section V analyzes the national policy responses to reform agendas set by global actors. The institutions of the nation state are analyzed in order to understand how global policy convergence masks a high degree of differentiation of educational systems and processes at subnational levels of government. The nation state and domestic politics has been the predominant framework for analyzing education policy developments until recently. Does the concept of globalization undermine the analytical power of the state in education? This section focuses on the contemporary challenges to the relationship between education and domestic systems of policy advice and networks. How is the role of the state changing in the globalized policy community of education? Central to the chapters is an analysis of how globalization has transformed existing state power and institutions dealing with education. Instead of taking a benign view of the relationship between the global and the national, the chapters shed light on the complexity of the challenges posed to education by global scripts and ideologies, and their variations across countries.

xvi   Preface Section VI zooms in on one specific dimension of globalization: the massification of education. The overall question is: Does convergence in conceptions of equality among secondary pupils, and more generally, of education policy globally eliminate national and local political contestation? The chapters investigate empirically with original data this question in a comparative perspective, with a special focus on secondary schooling and the reforms of massification and extension of access to secondary pupils. It emerges that no single model of access to mass education existed and that education inequality remains a highly diversified and contested notion and policy across countries. This section draws upon case studies mainly from European countries. In Section VII, the focus shifts on the case of higher education policy, which is the most globalized of the education sectors. Although the chapters show that there has not been a fundamental destabilization of the nation state form, and that there is no reduction in the role of the state, normative globalization and cultural theories hold very strongly in this field of higher education reforms. We look not only at Europe but also at other emerging countries such as China and India which have been exposed to the influence of normative ideas. In the final section, Section VIII, the book looks at the huge variations of the effects of globalized education policies in the Global South, with a focus on Latin America. Despite assertions that education policies are increasingly converging in a globalized world, Latin American countries vary widely in the resources they devote to education and the development of human capital, and in how global education policies are adopted and implemented. In addition, there is also important variation within countries in educational investment and policies. As in other developing regions, in Latin America the implications of globalization and integration into the world economy are diverse and mediated by local actors, structures, and processes.

References Almond, G. A., Powell, G. B., Strom, K., & Dalton, R. (2004). Comparative politics today: A world view. Pearson Longman. Beck, U. (2000). The cosmopolitan perspective: Sociology in the second age of modernity. British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 79–​105. Caporaso, J. A. (1996). The European Union and forms of state: Westphalian, regulatory or post-​modern. Journal of Common Market Studies, 34(1), 29–​52. Caramani, D. (2020). Comparative politics. Oxford University Press. Gibson, E. L. (2004). Federalism and democracy in Latin America. Johns Hopkins University Press. Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, J. (1999). Global transformations: Politics, economics and culture. Polity and Stanford University Press. Held, D., & McGrew A. (2007). Globalization/​anti-​globalization. Polity Press. Hooghe L., & Marks G. (2020). A postfunctionalist theory of multilevel governance. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 22(4), 820–826. Luhmann, N. (1997). Globalization or world society: How to conceive of modern society? International Review of Sociology, 7(1), 67–​79.

Preface   xvii Meyer, J., Boli, J., Thomas, G. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (1997). World society and the nation-​state. American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 144–​181. Schattschneider, E. E. (1975). The semisovereign people: A realist’s view of democracy in America. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Skocpol, T. (2013). Bringing the state back in. In M.Hill (ed). The Policy Process. A Reader. Routledge, Abingdon, 126–139 Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, capital and European states: AD990–​1990. Blackwell. Urry, J. (2000). Sociology beyond societies: Mobilities for the twenty-​first century. Routledge.

Contributors

Kathryn Anderson-​Levitt University of Michigan, Dearborn Gabriele Ballarino University of Milan Cristiane Batista Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro Jacqueline Behrend Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and Universidad Nacional de San Martín Caroline Bertron University of Paris 8 Fabian Besche-​Truthe University of Bremen Ingrid Bleynat King’s College London Gwendolin J. Blossfeld Hans-​Peter Blossfeld University of Bamberg and European University Institute Patricia Bromley Stanford University Lorenzo Cappellari Catholic University of Milan Daniele Checchi University of Milan Minju Choi Stanford University Giancarlo Corsi University of Modena

xx   Contributors Ricardo Cuenca Instituto de Estudios Peruanos Hannah K. D’Apice Stanford University Xavier Dumay UCLouvain Steven Dutt-​Ross Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro Kirsten T. Edwards University of Oklahoma Nanna Ramsing Enemark University of Aalborg Jared Furuta Stanford University Maria Tullia Galanti University of Milan Sandra García Universidad de los Andes Julian L. Garritzmann Goethe University Frankfurt Susanne Garritzmann Goethe University Frankfurt and University of Konstanz Jane R. Gingrich University of Oxford Anja Giudici University of Newcastle Amandine Bernal Gonzalez UCLouvain Lukas Graf Hertie School –​The University of Governance in Berlin Sotiria Grek University of Edinburgh Julian Hamann Humboldt-​Universität zu Berlin

Contributors   xxi Jeroen Huisman Ghent University Takehiko Kariya University of Oxford Guo Guo Ke Lingnan University of Hong Kong David Krogmann University of Bremen Marek Kwiek AMU University of Poznan Seungah S. Lee NY University Gerald K. LeTendre Pennsylvania State University Eric Mangez UCLouvain Simon Marginson University of Oxford Christian Maroy UCLouvain Kerstin Martens University of Bremen Paola Mattei University of Milan Daniel McArthur University of York John W. Meyer Stanford University Alejandra Mizala Universidad de Chile Ka Ho Mok Lingnan University of Hong Kong Luis Monroy-​Gómez-​Franco City University of New York

xxii   Contributors Dennis Niemann University of Bremen Mark Olssen University of Surrey Marco Ovidi Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano Jenny Ozga University of Oxford Nazareno Panichella University of Milan Xavier Pons University Claude Bernard Lyon Francisco O. Ramirez Stanford University Ben Ross Schneider Massachusetts Institute of Technology Helen Seitzer University of Bremen Riyad A. Shahjahan Michigan State University Maarten Simons KU Leuven Nadine Ann Skinner Stanford University Rudolf Stichweh University of Bonn Zhen Tian Lingnan University of Hong Kong Jandhyala B. G. Tilak Council for Social Development Alice Tilman UCLouvain Astrid Tolo University of Bergen

Contributors   xxiii Pieter Vanden Broeck Columbia University Raf Vanderstraeten Ghent University Agnès van Zanten Sciences Po Paris Marie Verhoeven UCLouvain Louis Volante Brock University & UNU-​MERIT Christine Weinbach University of Bonn Laurence Whitehead Nuffield College, University of Oxford Michael Windzio University of Bremen Christian Ydesen University of Aalborg

Pa rt I

S O C IA L T H E ORY, G L OBA L I Z AT ION , A N D E DU C AT ION

In troduction to Pa rt I Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez *

Setting the Stage “Globalization” has become one of the most recurrent concepts in social sciences. More often than not, however, the concept is handled without much of a properly articulated theory capable of explaining its historical origin and expansion. For education researchers attempting to elucidate how global changes and processes affect their field of study, this situation is problematic. When mobilized in the field of education, the notion seems to suffer from a persistent lack of conceptual clarity. It is often taken to mean a number of different things. For some it refers to the emergence of supranational institutions; others view its effects essentially through the development of international comparison and accountability; others understand it as an outcome of capitalist expansion; yet others associate it with the rise of the new technologies of communication or conceive of it merely as a discursive ideological construction meant to legitimate change. While a comprehensive convergence of views on how to theorize this important notion might not be possible, or even desirable, the field would nevertheless benefit from an effort to clarify the main lines of demarcation of the debate. For all intents and purposes, what emerges now is a somewhat confusing situation where more and more references are made to a still rather elusive concept. Seemingly simple problems are not solved: Should we speak of “the globalization of education,” or is “globalization” a noneducational process that somehow affects education from the outside? Is “globalization” essentially an economic process? Is it a “cultural” process? The outcome of politics/​policy? Or yet something else? How did it come about and evolve? Fundamentally, what theories of society do we have at our disposal to help make sense of it? * 

Authors in alphabetical order.

4    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez The ambition of Part I of this Handbook is to develop a firmer and tighter iterative dialogue between social theory, long concerned with theories of globalization, and education research. To a certain extent, education research and social theory have remained worlds apart, each busy with its own, seemingly specific, problem of reference. Attempts to bridge the gap between fundamental theories of globalization and the study of educational problems are still rare and often insufficiently sophisticated. The way the two fields of research relate to the notion of the nation state sheds some light on the gap between them: While social theorists have not always managed to account sufficiently clearly for the role of the nation state in globalization, or have even merely overlooked it, education research has, for its part, often emphasized the national level, to the point of finding itself trapped in “methodological nationalism” and subsequently failing to see education and education policy as global phenomena from the start. Globalization studies in education have come to the forefront of the research agenda rather recently, following patterns of evolution in the 1990s in other disciplines such as political science and international relations (Held, 1997), anthropology (Appadurai, 1996), and sociology (Guillen, 2001). The notion that modern society had acquired a global or worldwide character has, however, a much longer history in the social sciences. Karl Marx’s work on capitalism was entirely dedicated to the study of the autonomization of “a system” capable of imposing and expanding its logic toward ever more objects and all over the world: “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie around over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere” (Marx & Engels, 1848/​1998, p. 243). Marx and Engels further emphasized that the “exploitation of the world market” had progressively “given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.” The notion of a world society that possesses not only a global economy (a world market) but also a number of other global systems (science, religion, politics, education, law . . .) is certainly not absent from the early days of sociology and the work of Weber, Simmel, or Tarde, for example. From the 1970s, building on the foundational works of sociology, major theories of “world-​level” culture (Meyer & Hannan, 1979), system (Wallerstein, 1974), or society (Luhmann, 1971) developed by analyzing globalization as the expansion of modern society’s principles of organization (i.e., normative integration and isomorphism; class divisions and conflict; functional differentiation and self-​referentiality). Globalization, in each of these analytical perspectives, is conceived of as a progressive process with its own history. In the “world culture” perspective, the Renaissance and the humanistic orientation of monotheist religions gave birth to a culturally rationalized humanistic project of creating progress and justice; in the world system theory, it is the (self-​) expansion of capitalism observable from the 15th century and its demands on other, noneconomic, domains of social life which created a world system; and in Luhmann’s systems theory, wars of religion and the invention of the printing press (which revealed the contingency of the world) triggered the gradual

Introduction to Part I    5 replacement of a stratified societal order by another order emphasizing functional differentiation. These three theories were chosen as entry points for this chapter because they offer, in our view, the most sophisticated accounts of modernity and globalization, and therefore allow an in-​depth comparison between them. Of course, they do not cover the entire spectrum of existing theories of globalization. In order to nuance our main arguments, we therefore also refer, to some extent, to other complementary theoretical approaches. These three theories have been variably influential in shaping the field of globalization studies in education. They are, however, rarely discussed comparatively from a paradigmatic perspective (with some exceptions; see, for instance, Burbules & Torres, 2000, or Popkewitz & Rivzi, 2009, for a discussion of globalization in education; or Holzer et al., 2015, for a broader comparison of world-​culture theory with Luhmann’s systems theory). Our goal in Part I of this Handbook is therefore to take up the challenge and discuss the nature, forms, and drivers of globalization in education from these three distinct theoretical perspectives. Part I is organized in three sections, each dedicated to one pivotal paradigm. While each section inevitably puts forward some specific topics and problems, a number of themes are also dealt with across the sections in order to facilitate comparison and transversal reflection. Section I deals with cultural approaches of globalization in education, Section II is concerned with how more structural frameworks and political economy approach the problem; and Section III focuses on systems theory’s understanding of globalization and the globalization of education. In this Introduction, we start by discussing comparatively the core principles underpinning the theories of (world) society involved in the three paradigms. Then, we present how each theoretical orientation assesses the temporal evolution of globalization and identifies and explains its (problematic) consequences in late modernity before looking more specifically at how each conceives the place or function of education in its worldwide perspective. Finally, we delve into the way each strand conceptualizes the relations between education and policy, and we conclude by pointing to emerging debates and research avenues.

Globalization Theories as Theories of (Modern) Society World culture (Meyer), world system (Wallerstein), and world society (Luhmann) theories, to name the main protagonists,1 situate globalization in a long-​term historical perspective as a corollary of modernity, but bring forth different answers to the questions of what makes social order possible in modernity, and what demarcates the modern period from preceding ones.

6    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez The world culture theory (WCT) situates the institutional origins of globalization in the cultural transformation of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. Institutions, in this perspective, are “cultural rules giving collective meaning and value to particular entities and activities, integrating them into the larger schemes” (Meyer et al., 1987, p. 2), and not merely formal institutions (e.g., political, economic, or educational institutions or fields). WCT nurtures the ambition of explaining the structuration of modern society as a whole, by considering that all societal sectors (education, economy, polity, etc.) are embedded in a single process of cultural rationalization. Drawing on Weber’s analysis of Western rationalization, modernity and globalization are seen as historical processes through which society becomes progressively governed by culturally rationalized rules, and no longer by reference to the tradition (even if religions have strongly inspired the humanistic model of rationalization).2 Both nature and the moral order (society) have become understandable, predictable, and thus manageable and governable. World society is filled with global models, transcendental principles devoted to defining possible collective and shared horizons. These models are education models (modern educational systems and the grammar of schooling, but not only), economic models defining how to govern a world-​level economic exchange system, political ideals on the participation of actors in political decisions, but mainly cultural representations made possible by the rationalization and emergence of a shared model of rational actorhood. Rationalization operates as a grand cultural process producing institutionalized myths shaping the sectors of society. Even more importantly, the myth of actorhood assumes that the underlying social entities of the global world (individuals, organizations, and states) think of themselves as genuine actors with their own agency and a sense of identity. The cognitive structures of society are located within actors, which, being entitled to autonomy and protection, become agentic. This cultural transformation of society relies on mechanisms of isomorphism: Social entities identify with the same set of norms, which facilitates their diffusion, even in the absence of direct contact between the entities in question. In this way, no society and no human groups, in the world society, can escape the education question, the environmental question, the question of participation in democracy, the question of the expansion of science, or the issue of human rights. Institutionalized conceptions of the organizations provide recipes for successful management; states subscribe to similar purposes and possess similar structures that make the circulation of public policies and institutional structures possible. Wallerstein’s world system theory takes a different entry in the analysis of modernity and globalization. It builds on a historical analysis of the development of modern capitalism as a world-​historic mode of production. The distinctive feature of this mode of production (compared with preceding forms of economy), which emerges in Europe in the 15th century, stems from its ability to fuel its own expansion (see also the distinction between embedded and disembedded economy in Polanyi, 1944), that

Introduction to Part I    7 is, the accumulation of capital. In previous economic systems, the long and complex process of accumulation of capital was usually blocked, for reasons linked to morality or to the nonavailability of one or more elements of the accumulation process (e.g., accumulated value in the form of money, labor power, network of distributors, and consumers) (Wallerstein, 1983). The unification of a world market and the concomitant division of labor at the world level relied on extended commodification and produced a “capitalist civilization” by the penetration of the capitalist mode of production into other domains of social life. In his historical account of the modern world system, Wallerstein insistently underlined that the capitalist economy came into existence in Europe before all other modern institutions (education included). He understands such precedence as evidence of the primacy of the economy over other modern dynamics (Wallerstein, 1984, p. 29). As a forerunner, capitalism, it is argued, explains and actually motivates, or even demands, the subsequent development of modern institutions orchestrated by nation states. Nation states, in turn, became the most essential building blocks of the capitalist world system. Only (strong and sovereign) states can create and maintain the conditions necessary for establishing a global capitalist interstate system. World system theory understands (national) societies as class societies and analogously describes the modern world as a stratified order of nations, a power hierarchy among states and other transnational organizations, in which exploitative dynamics between core and (semi)peripheral zones are continually at work. With its Marxist inspiration, world system theory contends that these dynamics of exploitation rely on, as much as they generate, ideological supports. It should therefore not come as a surprise that, next to their analysis of the material aspects of the world economy (i.e., their focus on how surplus value is created and distributed), world system scholars have grown increasingly interested in the analysis of the discourses, ideas, and policies that support capitalism and its dominating structures. They find that modern education emerged in the 19th century as a component of a broader “liberal program” promoted by the core countries (strong states) of the modern world system, to consolidate the emerging world order and their own functioning and favorable position within it. Note that the notion of a “strong state” designates well-​functioning liberal states, as opposed to (former) colonies or dictatorships for example, which are considered weaker states (even when they may, on the face of it, seem more violent). While Wallerstein’s initial project does not aim to contribute to social theory per se,3 he thus nonetheless ends up with a theory of society where the emerging capitalist economy structures and relies on other sectors of society to perpetuate and expand itself. Like all social theories, Luhmann’s theory of a global world society deals with the question of understanding how social order is possible. Its answer is: By means of differentiation. Order comes about by establishing and stabilizing differences, drawing lines, making distinctions, and in this way organizing communicative

8    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez processes. Different societies differentiate themselves differently, distinguishing for example between “us” and “them,” superior and inferior, center and periphery, religion and science, and so on. The societies of our traditions relied on segmentary differentiation and, eventually, on hierarchical differentiation (stratification). Stratified societies were grounded on an external point of reference (God, nature) on which they could build their internal order: There was then “only one position from which to develop and circulate self-​descriptions: the position of the center or of the hierarchical leaders, i.e., the position of the city or of the aristocracy” (Luhmann, 1988, p. 27). For systems theory, globalization, or rather the emergence of world society, begins when another mode of differentiation—​functional differentiation—​surfaces and gradually replaces stratification. Functional differentiation has developed since the late Middle Ages but “was recognized as disruptive only in the second half of the 18th century” (Luhmann, 1997, p. 70). Luhmann published studies dedicated to the differentiation of a series of function systems: law, education, art, politics, science, the mass media, and so on. Often symbolized by the French Revolution, the more profound historical causes of the break away from older societal forms are to be found in the printing press and religious wars: Both played the same role of revealing the contingency of the world. With the resulting dissolution of a fixed and extra-​societal point of reference capable of univocally ordering society (Clam, 2004, p. 247; Luhmann, 2013, p. 225) comes the progressive structural primacy of cognitive expectations (doubts) over normative expectation (certainties). The shared norms, which ensured the integration of premodern society, were thus progressively replaced by a “precarious order based on the institutionalization of learning.” That society no longer depends on a hierarchical order (discriminating spaces and peoples) but on functional differences is a very foundational, and maybe the most important, statement that systems theory makes about modern society. Functional differentiation indeed comes with far-​reaching consequences. One such consequence is the establishment of world society through multiple processes of globalization. Function systems know no physical boundaries: They do not contain a certain population, and they do not end at this or that spatial frontier (Luhmann 2008, p. 41). In their very principles (specificity and universality), they are therefore global from the start. Just as there is only one world economy (with all its internal and regional differences), there is today only one global scientific system (internally differentiated into disciplines, problems, theories, etc. and populated with many distinct organizations), one political system (differentiated into nation states most notably), one education system (with its own internal complexity and reliance on nation states), and so on. The (only) limit of such systems is the limit of their function. Function systems are, as a result of this limitation, not capable of grasping their environment comprehensively. All they can do—​and this is how they form themselves—​is to observe their environment very selectively, by relying on their own specific way of observing.

Introduction to Part I    9 Each system produces its limited, reductive, focused, necessarily partial version of the world (and in this way it produces itself). Modern society is therefore not capable of observing and knowing the world unequivocally. Instead, it produces, within itself, a series of diverse, multiple, incompatible descriptions of the world and of itself. Thus, while world culture and world system theories explain the origin and expansion of globalization in relation to the primacy of a preponderant logic (culture or the economy), Luhmann’s sociological systems theory starts from a different, opposite, premise: Not the predominance but instead the lack of any predominant logic, and the ensuing “heterarchy” of—​specific yet universal—​systems, fuels globalization processes. In this way, systems theory develops a theory of world society which contrasts with neoinstitutionalist and structuralist approaches: It does not start with imitation and isomorphism, nor with conflict and power, but rather with contingency and functional differentiation. World culture, world system, and world society theories, while providing different accounts of the global character of modern society, nonetheless share important landmarks that differentiate them from the recent literature on globalization. First, they conceive of globalization as a long historical development triggered by the turn to modernity itself, and not as a recent development of a global arena beyond the frontiers of the nation states. Second, they put forward an analysis of the state as a global phenomenon, which means that they reject the conceptual opposition between the national and the global. In Wallerstein’s world system theory, states are among the key components of the interstate dynamic supporting the development of world-​level capitalism. In WCT, states, like organizations or individuals, are culturally rationalized actors, both enacting global models and scripting other actors (inter alia other states) in the adoption of global models. In Luhmann’s theory of a global world society, in which functional differentiation prevails, segmentation between nation states is but the internal mode of differentiation of the (global) political system. Thanks to this territorial anchorage, the political system could give rise to its most central organization, the nation state, and allow it to develop its function of making collectively binding decisions. Other differentiated systems, perhaps most notably the education system, profited from that national milieu (and from the state’s organizing ability) to build their own global modus operandi (Mangez & Vanden Broeck, 2020).

The (Problematic) Consequences of Globalization Globalization is apprehended, in the three theoretical paradigms, as an expansion: ever-​increased cultural rationalization in WCT; accrued accumulation of capital in the world system approach; and exacerbation of the self-​centeredness of function

10    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez systems in Luhmann’s world society. The expansive dynamics pervading modernity do not come about without creating or accentuating a number of problems, which are symptomatic of the current era (populism, illiberalism, excessive inequalities, terrorism, etc.). The theories under scrutiny in this Handbook have not always accorded the same importance to these problems, nor are they equally equipped to explain them. With its seminal focus on diffusion and isomorphic processes, WCT has perhaps been less inclined to put much emphasis on conflicts and tensions. Some recent developments, however, now aim to integrate in the neoinstitutional framework the structuring of counter-​reactions in the face of the hyperdevelopment of rationalization and liberalization. Attention to the problems that come with globalization is arguably more evident in the world system perspective where the disputed accumulation of capital has always been analyzed in relation to social movements, power struggles, and inequalities. Luhmann’s systems theory of world society has, for its part, also given much attention to the problematic consequences of modernity, the heterarchy of function systems leading to the excessive, invasive, and uncoordinated expansion of increasingly self-​referential logics. In WCT, the principle of cultural rationalization spreading through all sectors of society suggests a rather harmonious conception of society. Globalization in WCT seems less associated with (growing) violence, conflicts, or societal fragmentation than in world system or world society approaches. Nonetheless, WCT has ever since its early development involved ideas of growing complexity, with the expansion of the world society entailing both the expansion of societal sectors and modern actors. Over time, the cultural rationalization of society turned modern actors into more and more complex entities, equipped with many instruments for developing their agency and pressing others to develop theirs. Nation states have become more elaborate than they were a few decades ago: They have programs, ministries, and policies covering a much wider range of activities; organizations have built up more complex structures; individuals are also equipped with more elaborate self-​knowledge instruments. Modern actors, organizations in particular, are also subject to multiple forms of decoupling (see Bromley & Powell, 2012): not only the (vertical) decoupling between institutional expectations and adaptation to local constraints (e.g., policy-​practice gap) but also the (horizontal) decoupling between self-​developing organizational equipment, and the core technology and objectives of the organization (e.g., means and ends gap). Societal sectors as well become more complex, crossed by multiple, often contradictory, institutional logics (see LeTendre, Chapter 7, this volume). The education sector, for instance, is growing without any real limitations, to instantiate modern principles of rationalization, freedom, and progress, with any domain being potentially subject to rationalization and teaching/​learning (e.g., from entrepreneurship to environmental values) (see Lee & Ramirez, Chapter 1, this volume). From the 1990s, the spread of organizations and increased individualization signaled a neoliberal turn (see Choi et al., Chapter 5, this volume), which also triggered

Introduction to Part I    11 new sorts of contestation opposing the very principle of cultural rationalization focused on the sacredness of individual choice, actorhood, and ideals of progress. Such “postliberal reactions” (see Furuta et al., Chapter 4, this volume) suggest a possible decline in the hegemony of the liberal order (or, in the language of institutionalism, the deinstitutionalization of the global liberal order). The decline of the liberal United States, the rising influence of the BRIC countries, the dramatic 2008 financial crisis, or the spread of liberal models into traditional arenas of social, communal, and family life together led to some contestations of the liberal/​neoliberal order. These reactions involve challenges to some of the main cultural principles of modernity: the predominance of rationalization over tradition; the myth of actorhood; or the landmark values of progress, freedom, and human rights. They are mainly right-​wing, but left-​wing manifestations are observed as well. On the right, they involve a return to more traditional modes of integration and the reinforcement of collectives (e.g., religious, political-​populist, familial), or the essentialization of individuals in friction with the myth of actorhood. And on the left, they bring forth contestations of the cultural, economic, and political institutions based on the tensions between ideals of progress and justice, and rising inequalities. The world system approach has always associated capitalism with a number of problematic consequences, in particular its tendency to produce, and amplify, inequalities, both locally and globally. Depending on the period in history, these problems have been more or less contained, and legitimated. The world economy developed by drawing on the development of an interstate system of exchange and competition but also on political structures and administrations (involving welfare systems), and a geoculture (ideologies, science, social movements) transcending to a certain extent the conflictual interests of capitalists and proletarians. As noted by post-​Marxist authors, “capitalism is an economic system that always requires extra-​economic embedding; its fundamental character means that it is unable to provide the necessary conditions of its continued expansion” (Dale, 2005, p. 121). In other words, the world economy established itself by subordinating polity and culture to its requirements (see the infrastructure-​superstructure dialectic in Marx and Engels, or the embeddedness of the economy in Polanyi). However, the recent neoliberalization—​that is, the ever-​expanding uncontained capitalist logic—​brings forth a series of exacerbated consequences, resulting from a deterioration of several mechanisms of legitimization and redistribution. First, it aggravated social inequalities and the polarization of wealth distribution (Piketty, 2021), especially in some regions of the world. In some others, domestic institutions (among others, education) rather keep individuals—​at least some categories of them—​from becoming losers in the process of globalization (see Blossfeld & Blossfeld, Chapter 13, this volume). Second, and relatedly, it renewed ideological resistance and reshaped social movements (e.g., right-​wing populism) triggered by the socioeconomic and cultural marginality of those left behind by these processes of neoliberal globalization (Robertson & Nestore, 2021). Third, it also affects

12    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez modern political and cultural institutions on which the economy is now more loosely relying, or rather drawing on in new ways. In the words of Colin Crouch (2004) about political institutions, “democracy in many advanced societies was being hollowed out, its big events becoming empty rituals as power passed increasingly to circles of wealthy business elites and an ever more isolated political class,” as a result of global financial deregulation and the weakening of class identities and struggles. Speaking of the institutions of industrial democracy, Baccaro and Howell (2017) describe a (neoliberal) dismantling of industrial relations4 revolving around the expansion of employer discretion in several strategic domains (wage determination, personnel management, work organization, and hiring and firing procedures). In the same vein, Jenny Ozga’s analysis (Chapter 9, this volume) of educational policy in the neoliberal age shows an usurpation of scientific expertise in the interest of international organizations creating international competition. In addition, many other authors (e.g., Giroux, 2018) link the development of the learner-​centered approach or education focused on market-​driven competitiveness to the neoliberalization of education and pedagogy (for other examples of critical analyses of neoliberalization in education, see Ball, 2003). By emphasizing the heterarchical character of functional differentiation, Luhmann’s systems theory rejects all views attributing modernity’s specificity to any one ordering principle: To speak, for example, of modernity as neoliberal society, or alternatively to characterize it by an all-​encompassing process of rationalization and standardization, is a claim whose flaw, according to Luhmann, is to oversimplify and thus misunderstand modernity by reducing it to only one of its facets (Luhmann, 1995, pp. 464–​465). In contrast to most social theorists, Luhmann associates functional differentiation with the lack of any primary ordering principle and emphasizes the problematic consequences that ensue from such an absence. Among the many problematic consequences of functional differentiation, the best known “is certainly the failure of the world economic system to cope with the problem of the just distribution of wealth,” but, Luhmann adds, “[s]‌imilar problems can be cited for other functional systems” (Luhmann 2013, p. 124). In the absence of any prevailing ordering principle, systems do not complement one another so as to establish a coherent whole (as Talcott Parsons would have it), nor do they converge to ensure the reproduction of capital (as Marxism might assume). Instead, each system recklessly assumes the primacy of its own function and tends to expand its reach and invade its surroundings. Function systems exhibit a built-​in expansive logic. When society renounced establishing its internal order on an external ground (nature and God), it condemned itself to self-​reference. Whatever is, then, can no longer remain stable or solid for long; new possibilities can now constantly be thematized: Why this, why not that instead? “What ( . . . ) if we set out to observe the natural as artificial and the necessary as contingent?” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 90). The question operates as the leitmotiv of modernity. It can and will be applied to ever more aspects of modern life. Modernity thus

Introduction to Part I    13 presents us with a “cosmology of contingency” (Luhmann, 2005, p. 39): How can one know what to do, what to believe, what to think? Uncertainties proliferate as regards the future and the decisions to be made globally. Individuals, organizations, and systems all seem to experience an acceleration of the pace of time (Rosa, 2013). Faced with this specific mode of experiencing the future, which Luhmann (1976) refers to as the “futurization of the future,” different functional systems (law, economy, politics, education, science, etc.) can react in different ways (on this topic, see also Mangez & Vanden Broeck, 2020). Understanding how such systems internalize “future emergencies” (Opitz & Tellman, 2015) has become a central concern for a number of systems theorists. One first possible answer to this question consists in considering future uncertainties as a resource (Esposito, 2015) for the expansion of each system, rather than as an obstacle to its operations: Uncertainties then lead to ever more policy, ever more science, ever more economic operations, ever more art, more laws, and so on, thus endlessly feeding a global process of systemic expansion. In the realm of education, too, questions have been asked which have contributed to expanding the system: Why only teach and learn between the ages of 5 or 6 and 16 or 18? Why not earlier, later, or even throughout life? Why only learn in schools and universities? Why not include nonformal, real-​life situations within learning processes? Why not teach citizenship, entrepreneurship, or coding? Why not learn how to learn? A substantial acceleration of the evolution process is rendered possible by the thematization of possible variations (see Luhmann, 1990, p. 67). As argued elsewhere, it enables education’s global expansion in all directions: in its temporal dimension, as lifelong learning; in its social dimension, as mass schooling; and in its material dimension, as the “educationalization” of all facets of life (Mangez & Vanden Broeck, 2021; Vanden Broeck, 2020). There seems no longer to be any legitimate limit to the list of possibilities with regard to who, what, or when to educate. Expansive dynamics are at work in various systems simultaneously (and this means: without coordination). The result of such multiple, uncoordinated, dynamics “will reinforce unpredictability ( . . . ) and bring about a higher degree of uncertainty with respect to the future” (Luhmann, 1990, p. 184). Systems theory portrays modern society’s future as a series of imbalances among expansive, invasive, self-​centered logics. None of the three paradigms under examination considers the problematic consequences and reactions to hypermodernity or late modernity as obstructions to globalization. In WCT, modern myths of the liberal order indeed cohabit with postliberal reactions making the world culturally more complex. The world system theory, for its part, has always pointed to the adaptive capacities of capitalism in the face of social movements or restructured economic parameters (i.e., green capitalism as an adaptation to the consumer market and the scarcity of natural resources). Social movements, global or national, have hardly constrained capitalist development in history, but the recent economic and health crises suggest some possible resurgence of modern institutions (democracy, redistributive social

14    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez policies, etc.) limiting the consequences of expanding capitalism (Crouch, 2020). Finally, Luhmann’s system theory has from its early development integrated ideas of improbability, instability, and violence, and rather sees the global expansion of self-​centered systems as a source of increased complexity giving rise to a society constantly on the edge of chaos.

Modern Forms of Education and Beyond The three theories under discussion in this Handbook view education as part and parcel of the complex set of social and institutional domains that emerged along with (early modern) nation-​state society and eventually evolved in relation to the ensuing (late modern) transformations of nation states themselves. Theories differ, however, in their analysis of the role or function of education in this increasingly global context. In the cultural approach, education seems to stand both as an outcome of, and a means for, the diffusion of rationalization. World system theory develops a more conflictual perspective on capitalism in which education seems to operate as an instrument supporting broader local and global processes of domination and legitimation. Systems theory, for its part, prefers to characterize education as an autopoietic system capable of adapting to its changing environment and also of parasitizing and coupling itself with strategic allies like the nation state. In this section, we look at the place given to modern education by each of the three core theories and we further reflect on how they interpret recent evolutions in education, notably the new global emphasis on learning. The different strands of cultural or institutional theorizations have not all given the same importance to modern education and its school form. In WCT, modern education, even if mainly organized by nation states, is seen as a global product, universal and universalistic in aspiration (Meyer & Ramirez, 2000). Nation states are themselves a global construct embedded in world society. Education and schools more particularly operate as a vehicle for the rationalization of the world and the acculturation of individuals. The idea of a “schooled society” (Baker, 2014) indicates that society is increasingly created and defined by education. The dramatic expansion of education should be regarded as responding to the need for modern societies to incorporate and locate within actors the principle of the modern world society. Education is thus a core and causal part of the cultural model of the modern society or nation state. With globalization, education models are increasingly diffused from international organizations. Nonetheless, the institutional dynamic of diffusion and standardization of modern education remains fundamentally linked to the spread of the world culture and isomorphism. The expansion and standardization of education

Introduction to Part I    15 cover educational structures (e.g., mandatory schooling and nonselective school structures), content (e.g., civics education) and instruction (e.g., active learner), and the organization of educational work and education organizations. The recent phase of educational expansion relies more strongly on the expansion of organizations (see Choi et al., Chapter 5, this volume), which profoundly alters education. The most dramatic worldwide changes in education, such as privatization, the rise of testing, and the emergence of multi-​stakeholder governance regimes that run from local to global levels, are better understood as part of an organizational transformation of schooling and society than by any interpretations in terms of the (interest-​based, economy-​ defined) neoliberalization of society. In other words, in the world culture perspective, the expansion of education and the growth of organizations have the same root, that is, cultural rationalization. In particular, curricula put increased emphasis on organizations (of different kinds, not only international organizations) and participation of individuals in the organizational society, which may explain the expansion of 21st-​ century skills (critical thinking, problem-​solving, entrepreneurial thinking, etc.) and pedagogies such as project-​based learning. In addition to the spread of organizations, the decline in liberal hegemony outlined earlier weakens the centrality of common forms of education inspired by principles of universality. It then furthers the rise of alternative and oppositional models of society and redirects education toward less liberal-​individualist forms, which is now a central concern for world culture theorists. This is how WCT, in its most recent developments, interprets the growing success of homeschooling (specifically in the United States, but not only) or the resurgence of identity-​based, religious or politically oriented sorts of education. These are part of a broader movement of contestation of cultural institutions, precisely those in charge of reproducing and legitimating the global cultural order. With the exception of these more recent developments, the cultural approaches to the role of education in our global, modern society do not put much emphasis on conflicts and inequalities in their analysis.5 The opposite could be said of the second group of theories to which we now turn. For world system scholars and other structuralists or poststructuralists, the function of formal education, or that of the more diffused notion of “learning,” can indeed not be detached from an analysis of power mechanisms and an examination of the economy and the state. Strong states (need to) protect and educate their citizens, first to make “dangerous classes” less dangerous but then also to establish a market of consumers and to have “those with ‘merit’ ( . . . ) play the key roles in political, economic, and social institutions” (Wallerstein, 2004, p. 52). Together with other social or health policies, education establishes the conditions for strong states to function and perform within a liberal modern stratified social order. Not unlike class sociologists who view education as an indirect and subtle, even hidden, means for the reproduction and legitimation of class structure within

16    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez national societies, those walking in Wallerstein’s footsteps attribute a similar function to the programs of educational assistance that organizations (the World Bank, typically) and strong states from the core zone of the world system grant to those situated on the periphery. Such programs, whether or not they are perceived as instruments of domination by their addressees, are analyzed as direct or indirect means ensuring the maintenance and even the expansion of the capitalist world economy (Clayton, 1998). Almost half a century ago, Philip G. Altbach (1977) used the notion of “neocolonialism” to describe American foreign aid programs and spoke then of “a servitude of the mind” to characterize the educational effects of such programs. This line of analysis has been pursued and nuanced since then (Robertson, 2005). Research on policy transfer showed that pressure on weak states to adapt and adopt “international standards” in education does not lead to a global convergence of systems, but rather generates hybrid forms (Schriewer, 2016; Steiner-​Khamsi, 2004). It is important to notice that the power dynamics at work at this global interstate level constantly interact with the more local or national class struggles. In the weak states in particular, fractions of local elites may benefit from allying with powerful interests outside the country. Whether within nation states or at a more global interstate level, education, it is claimed, operates as an instrument of legitimation (next to and embedded with other such instruments) and as a condition for the dynamic reproduction of a constantly evolving global social order. In a somewhat similar vein, several scholars (see Ozga, Chapter 9, this volume) consider today’s knowledge-​based economy capable of shaping, or even instrumentalizing, a number of subordinated and interdependent (equally global) processes, whether they be educational, political, or even legal. Of all such subordinated systems, education often appears the least autonomous in the eyes of these analysts: It merely follows the economy and responds to its needs. And now that the new knowledge economy has turned knowledge itself into a key component, or even raw material, for its operations, education in a sense slavishly aligns with the demands of this economy for an accrued emphasis on learning, learning to learn, solving problems and other similar qualities expected from “knowledge workers.” These analysts thus see education as responding to the needs of the economy in the same way as Wallerstein when he analyzed how science (by rationalizing the world and institutionalizing the principle of universality), the polity (by guaranteeing stability and developing the interstate system), or education (by generating ideational support) has been instrumental in the development of world-​level capitalism. The new emphasis on learning has also attracted the attention of a number of researchers inspired by the work of Michel Foucault (see Ball, 2013). Their perspective, it must be recognized, is different from that outlined earlier.6 At the center of the Foucaldian tradition, one finds the notion of the “apparatus” (dispositif). An apparatus operates as a solution to a problem, that of conducting the conduct of individuals, but, and this is important, as a solution without an author. It designates the very

Introduction to Part I    17 diffuse, ubiquitous, unavoidable presence of power in the social world. It is less about power mechanisms at work between identifiable groups or logics than about society exercising power on itself. Maarten Simons (Chapter 10, this volume) links Europeanization and globalization with the progressive replacement of the “social apparatus” by the “learning apparatus.” Lifelong learning is becoming an apparatus through which individuals learn to govern themselves and conduct their lives by constantly investing in their own learning. Like the branches of social theory discussed earlier, systems theory acknowledges education as a latecomer among the various function systems that have differentiated themselves in the course of the long transition to modernity. The differentiation of a system for education indeed started after most other function systems had begun their own differentiation (see Vanderstraeten, Chapter 16, this volume). Only when the process of functional differentiation had rendered modern society more complex was the need for an education system deemed necessary. According to systems theory, however, no conclusion can be drawn from this delay with regard to the status of education, as compared with other systems. That it came after several other developments does not make it a product of, or a simple support system for, say, the economy or politics, or any other logics. Systems theory thus diverges both from neoinstitutionalism(s) and from the more power-​centered approaches outlined earlier. Education is not merely a channel for a broader process of rationalization; nor is it a stratagem for establishing and legitimating power relations locally and globally. Instead, systems theory understands education as a global system with a life of its own. It is a specific form of communication, which emerged in response to increased complexity and which became capable of perpetuating itself. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, the problem of the relationship between education and politics deserves some development. Perhaps surprisingly Luhmann argues that education has a life of its own but simultaneously acknowledges that it lacks the technology to achieve its task on its own. The contradiction is only apparent. In contrast with several other systems such as the economy or science, education does not possess a genuine generalized symbolic medium to increase the probability of its success. Luhmann and Schorr (1979, 2000) speak of a technological deficit to emphasize the insurmountable difference between education as a social system (communication) and the learners’ psychic systems (consciousness) which it hopes to change. In an attempt to overcome its limit, education relies on the organization of lengthy interactions between teachers and students (on this topic, see Vanden Broeck, 2020). Their co-​presence in the classroom during extended periods of time is supposed to help education reach its unattainable target. But, for these interactions to even take place, an organization is needed: There must be schools and teachers, a precise yearly calendar and daily timetable, a population of pupils and students actually attending schools on a regular basis and divided into distinct age groups, and so on. All such requirements do not and cannot result from an operation of the education system itself. For all this, education

18    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez has had to rely on the political system and the decision-​making ability of the state. Such dependence should not be equated with a lack of autonomy. Education needs the state to ensure its organization in schools and classrooms, but the interaction order thus rendered possible then acquires a life of its own. Education operates a bit like a parasite that uses another system’s organizing ability as a support on which to perform its own operations. While his sociology thus describes education as a system which found in the state the perfect host to ensure its organization, Luhmann himself did not really explore much whether and how education could make use of other such supports. The task has hardly been taken up by other scholars with the exception of Pieter Vanden Broeck (2021), who has examined education’s reliance on the European Union, a transnational organization that lacks the means of the nation state, and documented the resulting emergence of a new educational form that no longer resembles the school and its classrooms. In their more detailed analysis of modern education, Luhmann and Schorr (2000, p. 70) distinguish stages in the evolution of the system. Education, they argue, organized itself successively around different “contingency formulas” (see Weinbach, Chapter 19, this volume). In the early 1980s already, they found that education increasingly relied on what they labeled the “learning to learn formula.” With the notion of “learning,” they argued, education achieves self-​referentiality: It now possesses a specific formula, independent from (any other system in) its environment, and which can be applied universally to any item or topic in this environment. It is crucial to understand that, for systems theory, the turn to learning is an accomplishment of the education system itself. While Luhmann and Schorr (2000) acknowledge that “with the quickly increasing differentiation, specialization, and fluctuation of work requirements,” the learning formula is probably more relevant for the economy, they maintain that its emergence cannot be attributed to demands from the economy but must be understood as the result of a reflective process of the education system itself. The contrast with the world system perspective could hardly be sharper.

Education and Policy The three main lines of theorization under scrutiny in the first part of this Handbook hold different views on the relations between education and politics. The policy dimension is arguably not predominant in WCT (see Maroy & Pons, Chapter 6, this volume). Cultural rationalization involves in the foreground institutions of rationalization (e.g., science) and acculturation (e.g., education);7 or rather, education, science, and polity are all embedded in the world culture. In this perspective, the nation state itself is a product of globalization and a vehicle for diffusing models across the globe (Meyer, 1980). In addition to nation states, a constellation of

Introduction to Part I    19 international actors (not really conceptualized as a field in WCT) act as rationalized others while increasing the institutional value and the diffusion of global models. The recognition of several types of interdependencies (political with the issue of world conflict and peace; economic with the issue of the governability of the world-​level economic exchange system; and cultural with the issue of migration for instance) has led to the creation and expansion of several types of international organizations (political nongovernmental associations, and professional and scientific organizations) forming a “world polity” (Meyer et al., 1997). In scriptwriting the world, these organizations are confronted with difficulties and problems that indicate the path through which they develop the global models. Due to the absence of a real possibility for authoritative resolutions, they have to diffuse their idealized models through soft law. And their narratives are anchored in the dominance of collective and nonconflictual ideas. These characteristics indicate the peculiar nature of the world polity: It involves limited power relations and competition among states given the actors’ common identity; and in the same way, limited constraints or coercive power. Power is therefore not evacuated but limited by the injunction on states to behave according to shared norms and structures. Consequently, states, like other actors (individuals, organizations), tend to grow more structured and elaborated with time. They develop ever more ministries, policies, programs, regulations, and instruments of every kind in search of legitimacy, thus expanding the policy sector in the same way as an expansion of education has been observed by WCT. However, polity is also decoupled in many ways. Global models are decoupled from the real activity of states because “nation states are modeled on an external culture that cannot simply be imported wholesale as a fully functioning system” (Meyer et al., 1997, p. 154), and policies on the national scene are most often decoupled from the real practices in societal sectors (i.e., education). If coherence or standardization is observed (among organizations in the same sector, or among sectors of society), it is not much due to policy structuration or coupling effects. Rather, it results from similar patterns of rationalization rooted in the world culture that make policy systems like education or science look similar from one place to another. As outlined earlier, the world system literature also gives a central place to states. However, their role is of a different nature than in WCT. States put in place the necessary conditions for the development of capitalism (Dale, 2005). Strong states manage to implement a number of policies that strengthen their position (e.g., by educating their citizens or adapting the workforce). They may even manage to educate workers of weak states in a way that corresponds to their interests. The analysis is directed in parallel toward the unequal distribution of surplus value and toward the ideas, discourses, and policies that support its expansion. Education is seen as an instrument in the hands of politics and the economy that permits their reproduction and development. The more recent evolutions in the field have drawn attention

20    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez to the elaboration of a neoliberal discourse and the implementation of neoliberal policies across the globe. In education, for instance, neoliberalism relies essentially on a simple rationale. First comes the critique of the system: Schools, teachers, and students do not perform well enough, inequalities are growing, and the system is not working. Next comes scapegoating: Public education is bureaucratic, personnel have linear and secure careers, and pedagogy is inefficient. One of the key, and most contested, arguments of neoliberalism consists in presenting social problems (poverty, inequality, and unemployment) as resulting from a lack or mismatch of skills and competencies. Neoliberalism (in education) then consists essentially in promoting a number of remedies variably developed from one context to another: school choice policy, privatization, intensive testing (assessing students, schools, and national systems), and rewards and incentives for schools and teachers. In the same way, policy is often analyzed as subordinated to expanding economic interests (see Crouch, 2004). This subordination, it is argued, diverts democratic institutions from their task of representing and debating the common goods in favor of lobbies and business interests. Policy actors are then marginalized or suspected of acting in the service of capitalist development. Foucaldian analysts, as presented in this volume by Maarten Simons (Chapter 10), even if they make a very different argument on the nature of modern forms of power, join critical analyses of democracy (in the neoliberal age) by not locating power in the hands of policy actors. Power, then, is not the prerogative of formal policy circles. Instead, it is a diffuse process through which individuals are led to govern themselves by learning, made thus responsible for solving themselves different sets of individual problems (e.g., unemployment) and societal problems (e.g., social exclusion). Making individuals responsible for their own learning thus takes the place of social policies in bridging ideals of freedom and security. According to systems theory, the very notion of reforming, or that of policymaking, only acquired its current meaning with the turn to modernity (see Corsi, Chapter 17, this volume). It relies on the modern and nowadays global assumptions that the future will differ from the past and that it is possible to act upon it in the present. That these assumptions are solidly anchored in today’s world society does not make them unproblematic (Vanderstraeten, 1997). In Luhmann’s recently translated book Organization and Decision (2019, pp. 273–​298), one finds a chapter entitled “Structural Change: The Poetry of Reform and the Reality of Evolution.” The opposition conveyed by the title of the chapter subsumes systems theory’s view on the problem of reforming or policymaking: Reality never obeys even the best of intentions to reform it, but results instead from a nongovernable, nonpredictable process of becoming, which Luhmann refers to here under the notion of evolution. To grasp the argument, one must acknowledge that any reform, any political attempt to steer a system, necessarily involves two strands of operations: “one has to distinguish the operation of steering, which produces its own effects, from the operation of observing this operation, which

Introduction to Part I    21 produces for its own part its own effects” (Luhmann, 1997, p. 45). These intertwined interventions by the reforming system and by the system it addresses trigger “strange loops.” The mere attempt to steer the world, simply by virtue of being visible to that world, tends to produce effects that cannot be steered: “steering always creates an additional effect by being observed and by the reactions of the observer in the one or the other way” (1997, p. 49). This should not be taken to mean that reforms are pointless and make no difference in the world. It rather implies that they lack control over their own effects. It is therefore unlikely that reforms merely meet their target: As is particularly obvious in the domain of education, reforms regularly fail, their effects are often moderate, uncertain, multiple, sometimes contradictory, regularly unexpected, and even counterproductive. Reforming then can never end; it constantly produces reasons to start reforming anew. But, as Luhmann warns, more steering will only lead to “more (and more rapid) unintentional evolution” (Luhmann, 1982, p. 134).

Discussion and Conclusion The first part of this Handbook discusses three ways in which social theory attempts to describe and explain the emergence of a single worldwide social reality. The three theoretical orientations under scrutiny differ in many respects but converge on one fundamental idea: The world we live in has been global for quite some time. Pointing to the exact beginnings is not easy, but all agree that the turn toward a global society can be linked to the emergence of modernity itself. Many notions that too hasty analysts associate with the nation state and oppose to globalization are in fact global from the start. The very idea of a nation—​and that of a nation state—​are global ideas. The grammar of schooling is another typical example of a global form (which explains why we immediately recognize a school as a school no matter where we travel in the world, and no matter how different it may appear from the schools we are most familiar with at home). Even where schools are lacking, the notion of a grammar of schooling is present and imposes itself, making their absence noticeable and even problematic. Curiously, however, this observation has not always been noticed. In the eyes of many, our modern global society has long taken the appearance of “a series of national societies.” The concept of globalization itself only gained broad, and indeed global, attention in the 1980s and has since then often been associated with some sort of ubiquitous threat. Apparently, society became increasingly sensitive to its global character long after the turn to modernity. The fact that globalization is now met with much ambivalence cannot be overlooked: It needs itself to be understood as an evolution in the process of globalization. While the ambivalence associated with the notion of globalization has become more intense in the last decades, it also resonates with concerns that had been

22    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez expressed much earlier. Marx and Engels had long underlined the lack of a stable ground resulting from capitalism’s constant orientation toward change. Weber was even more concerned than Marx with the global movement of modernity. For him, clearly, the uninterrupted preoccupation with the pursuit of order would inevitably come with a darker side filled with insecurities, unexpected consequences, and multiple alienations. The disappearance of shared norms haunted Durkheim’s perspective on the future of modernity. In view of the many global crises that we experience, one could argue that the problematic consequences that these founding figures had sensed long ago have remained with us and even worsened. The theoretical orientations that we have been discussing indeed all describe globalization as an ambivalent, double-​edged, evolving process. Each perspective acknowledges, though with more or less emphasis, that globalization carries with it a series of problematic consequences. These take the form of an epistemological crisis of modern rationality, values, and institutions in the recent development of WCT; the form of aggravated inequalities feeding resentment and distrust in democratic institutions in the world system perspective; and the form of increased uncertainty and the social exclusion of persons by uncoordinated expansive systemic logics in Luhmann’s systems theory. Different lines of research have emerged as attempts to better grasp these changes. The evolving role of the state has notably attracted the attention of several authors. Is the state still capable of containing the consequences of capitalism and does it contribute to reinventing new sorts of solidarities (Thelen, 2014)? What roles should modern educational systems and other kinds of learning play? Is the historical model of political constitution (of the nation state) relevant for inspiring world-​level civil constitutions, and renewed couplings of politics and law at multiple levels (Teubner, 2004)? Are there any other means than law to limit the expansive dynamic of differentiated systems? What theories of global justice can be proposed in a politically and economically ever more interconnected world, taking into account the rising importance of commons (Risse, 2012, p. x), specifically in the face of the climate change crisis? How can educational policies and systems contribute to renewed dynamics of citizenship and democracy (Torres, 2002)? Still others are looking at the increased role of organizations or between-​organization dynamics in globalization (e.g., Choi et al., Chapter 5, this volume). Should these dynamics be seen as complements or competitors to modern institutions? More broadly, do they signal transformations in the fundamental characteristics of (global) organizations and institutions towards more reflexive but also more contested institutions (Zürn, 2018)? Part I of this Handbook is intended as an invitation to amplify these emerging debates while simultaneously anchoring them in the evolution of social theories of modernity and globalization. At a time when globalization increasingly elicits emotional logics of fear and hope, in academia as well, this collection of chapters strongly encourages researchers to reinforce theoretical developments that capture

Introduction to Part I    23 fundamental mechanisms at work and so make sense of the seemingly troubled times of globalization.

Notes 1. Cultural analyses of globalization represented in the first section of this Handbook, for instance, include a significant diversity of theoretical approaches ranging from cultural anthropology (see Anderson-​Levitt, Chapter 2, this volume) to different strands of new-​ institutionalism, in particular the sociological and historical new institutionalisms (see Graf, Chapter 3, this volume). In this text, however, we mainly refer to the world culture theory (WCT) as an exemplification of the cultural analyses of globalization to avoid overcomplexity and allow for comparison of theoretical paradigms. In the same spirit, we mainly draw on Wallerstein’s world system theory to cover analyses of globalization from a perspective of domination, materialism, and inequalities, but theoretical approaches of this kind are much broader, including post-​Marxism, political economy, social philosophy, field theories, and comparative policy (see this Handbook, Section II). Section III, with its focus on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory and its recent developments, is more homogeneous. 2. For a critical discussion on the Weberian heritage of Meyer, see Carney et al. (2012), or a critical appraisal of the historical interpretation proposed by WCT, see Tröhler (2009). 3. The main field of study of Wallerstein is history or rather “socio-​history” (see Braudel, 1958). His history of capitalism is inspired by Marx, but he does not embed his historical analysis in the broader sociological theory of historical materialism, class divisions, and infrastructure/​superstructure dialectic, as Marx and Engels do, for example. 4. In the political-​ economy scholarship in historical institutionalism, the thesis of a neoliberalization of the economy and, beyond it, society, is disputed by alternative explanations focusing on the multiple trajectories of liberalization (Thelen, 2014). 5. One should note that in some strands of cultural anthropology, nevertheless, authors such as Jonathan Friedman (2007) precisely argue that analyses of globalization in terms of institutional arrangements or cultural meanings cannot be properly addressed without being integrated into the structural (Marxist) framework of reproduction. 6. Interestingly, Foucaldian analyses share some points with WCT. In WCT, the cultural rules of modernity involve the idea of a self-​governing actor. In other words, the myth of actorhood implies self-​governmentality. However, the two perspectives differ in the status given to power issues, much more central for Foucault than for WC theorists. 7. For David Kamens (1988), the development of political systems in nations, and the way popular participation in politics within democratic systems is organized, precisely results from educational expansion.

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26    Xavier Dumay and Eric Mangez Thelen, K. (2014). Varieties of liberalization and the new politics of social solidarity. Cambridge University Press. Torres, C. A. (2002). Globalization, education, and citizenship: Solidarity versus markets? American Educational Research Journal, 39(2), 363–​378. Tröhler, D. (2009). Globalizing globalization: The neo-​institutional concept of world culture. In T. Popkewitz & F. Rizvi (Eds.), Globalization and the study of education (pp. 29–​48). National Society for the Study of Education, 108th NSSE Yearbook. Vanden Broeck, P. (2020). Beyond school: Transnational differentiation and the shifting form of education in world society. Journal of Education Policy, 35(6), 836–​855. Vanden Broeck, P. (2021). Education in world society: A matter of form. European Educational Research Journal, 20(6), 791–​805. Vanderstraeten, R. (1997). Circularity, complexity and educational policy planning: A systems approach to the planning of school provision. Oxford Review of Education, 23(3), 321–​332. Wallerstein, I. (1974). The modern world system I: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European World-​economy in the sixteenth century. Academic Press. Wallerstein, I. (1983). Historical capitalism with capitalist civilization. Verso. Wallerstein, I. (1984). The politics of the world economy: The states, the movements, and the civilizations. Cambridge University Press and Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Wallerstein, I. (2004). World-​systems analysis. Duke University Press. Zürn, M. (2018). A theory of global governance. Oxford University Press.

Section I Culture, Globalization, and Education

chapter 1

Gl obalizing Nat i on States and Nat i ona l Edu cation Proj e c ts Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee

Introduction The triumphant diffusion of the nation state as blueprint or model has impacted the world, generating the “age of nation-​states” (Weitz, 2019). This is also the “world educational revolution” era, with both mass schooling and higher education globally expanding (Baker, 2014). At the center of these developments lie the reimagined individual person, entitled to education as a citizen, and now human rights, and expected to contribute to national development as a font of human capital (Ramirez et al., 2016). The empowered individual has also globalized as a key feature of what constitutes a legitimate nation state. In what follows, this chapter first revisits some of the main conceptual building blocks of the world society perspective and how these facilitate our understanding of the global rise of mass schooling and higher education as nation state projects that enhanced their legitimacy. Next, we focus on cross-​national studies of textbooks—​the main technologies of the intended curricula—​to ascertain what constitutes legitimate knowledge transmitted to future citizens. At issue here is whether there are global trends that can be accounted for by reflecting on the influence of world models of the legitimate nation state. We apply the same lens to higher education to gauge how much global models of excellence influence changes in the direction of more accessible and more flexible universities. We pay particular attention to the changing status of women in higher education, mindful of their historical exclusion. Lastly, in recognition of recent challenges to the dominant world models (see Furuta et al., Chapter 4, this volume), this chapter concludes by briefly reflecting on which educational developments are likely to persist and which are more vulnerable.

30    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee

Globalization and the Nation State Much of the recent literature on the impact of globalization on the nation state does not take into account the globalization of the nation state model itself, from its 17th-​ century Westphalian roots (Krasner, 1993) to its post–​World War incarnation. The triumph of this model motivated imperial dynasties and former colonies (Chirot, 1986; Strang, 1990) to refashion themselves as territorially bounded “imagined communities” (Anderson, 1991) with scripted national constitutions and other similarly scripted symbols of a unified nation state (Meyer et al., 1997). In Anderson’s words: The independence movements in the Americas became, as soon as they were printed about, “concepts,” “models,” and indeed “blueprints” [ . . . ] Out of the American welter, came these imagined realities: nation-​states, republican institutions, common citizenships, popular sovereignty, national flags and anthems, etc. [ . . . ] In effect by the second decade of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, a “model” of the independent national society was available for pirating. (Anderson 1991, p. 81)

From a world society perspective, the enactment of the model is crucial to projecting a legitimate nation state identity. Epistemic communities emerge and generate scripts on how to become a legitimate nation state (Meyer, 1997; Schofer et al., 2012). These scripts vary over time on how much development should be state or market driven. But development as a national goal for all nation states is now taken for granted. Though there is variation on whether development is construed narrowly (economic growth) or broadly (sustainable development), it would be hard to imagine a contemporary nation state that simply eschewed development as a national goal—​or, for that matter, one that proudly proclaimed military conquest of other nation states as its development strategy. Both national development goals and national strategies for attaining these goals are subjected to world inspection and international approval. “Getting it right” is what enactment of a legitimate nation state identity entails. To get it right, the legitimate nation state must look like an organizational actor (see Choi et al., Chapter 5, this volume, for the importance of organizational actorhood). National development plans, for example, were an earlier manifestation of legitimate nation state actorhood, as these transform development aspirations into goal-​oriented policy directions (Fägerlind & Saha, 1989). State planning became less fashionable in the neoliberal era (Hwang, 2006), though the focus on education for development continued. International conferences dedicated to national development issues reflected widespread interest in pursuing national development. Legitimate nation states are likely to show up. Neither plans nor participation in conferences may add up to development, but these are some ways of displaying proper nation state commitment and active engagement. Beyond development goals, “getting it right” has increasingly emphasized state responsibility for the well-​being of its citizens. While the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) was

Nation States and National Education Projects    31 designed to promote peace via emphasizing state sovereignty with little regard to the rights of the people within these states, subsequent developments emphasized nation states consisting of rights-​bearing citizens. In reaction to the horrors of World War II, often blamed on excessive state power fueling excessive nationalism, the United Nations sought to reaffirm citizen rights now reframed as human rights. The legitimate nation state was now expected to respect these rights and to attend to inequalities, increasingly seen as arising from past or continuing violations of these rights. The right to rights (Arendt, 1951; Somers, 2008) indeed led to an expanding set of rights claims often grounded on an expanding scope of recognized inequalities (see Tsutsui, 2018, for the case of Japan). The legitimate nation state was expected to pursue not only progress or development but also equity or justice for its citizens. Herein we also find epistemic communities at work, setting equity standards and processes for safeguarding rights. A proliferation of human rights treaties, organizations, and conferences now characterizes the global landscape (Elliott, 2007; Gordon, 1998; Lauren, 2003). To be sure, there are gaps between the talk and the walk, but the talk is widespread and to some extent consequential (Cole & Ramirez, 2013; Hafner-​Burton & Tsutsui, 2005; Hathaway, 2002). From a world society perspective, models, scripts, and identities are crucial conceptual building blocks, and these differ from other perspectives that emphasize the primacy of autonomous actors, local interests, and context-​specific goals. A basic problem with some of these perspectives is that they struggle to account for why one finds common outcomes across different entities. Their country-​specific interpretations abound at great costs to theoretical parsimony. A second issue is that when these perspectives more broadly address the impact of globalization, they often favor mechanisms such as coercion and learning (Dobbin et al., 2007). These are indeed sensible mechanisms for some outcomes, such as the role of the International Monetary Fund on the social programs of its borrowers (Vreeland, 2003). But as we shall see, there is less evidence of these mechanisms at work when it comes to a range of educational outcomes. We shall also see that the crucial mechanisms are often awareness of the educational decisions other countries have made and links to international organizations through which “expertise” on what constitutes “getting it right” is acquired. Furthermore, the zeitgeist of an era is consequential. Note that at the beginning of the 20th century one could muse about the danger of women in universities (see Mazon, 2003, for the case of Germany), but in the 21st century lack of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is the agreed-​ upon problem (European Technology Assessment Network, 2010). Taken as a whole, these mechanisms emphasize the influence of a global environment on nation states and national educational institutions and dynamics. From a world society perspective, the environment consists in world models of progress and justice and the organizational carriers and epistemic communities that articulate and disseminate these models (Boli & Thomas 1999). This perspective is a special case of social constructivist theory often employed in diffusion studies (Dobbin et al., 2007). The key thesis is that nation states enact legitimate identity by adhering to world models of progress and justice. This leads to common outcomes that are both widespread (diffusion) and

32    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee appropriate (institutionalization) (Colyvas & Jonsson, 2011). This also results in gaps between policies and practices (Meyer et al., 1997; Ramirez, 2012). Thus, we get both institutional isomorphism and loose coupling (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).

Globalization and National Educational Developments Throughout the 20th century and especially after World War II, mass schooling dramatically expanded throughout the world (Meyer et al., 1977, 1992). One might have anticipated the expansion in more democratic or more industrialized countries, with the local needs for better citizens in democratic regimes or more productive workers in industrialized countries shaping the outcomes. However, the commitment to schooling the masses transcended variations in societal conditions. Older fears about the educability of peasants or workers or girls dissipated. Optimistic assumptions about the transformative power of schooling emerged (Ramirez & Boli, 1987). Schooling for individual development and individual development as a key to national development became tenets in national agendas in the latter half of the 20th century (Fiala & Langford, 1987). What was dubbed the “world educational revolution” (Coombs, 1968; Meyer et al., 1977) led to the celebration of “Education for All” (Chabbott, 2003) and to uncontested aspirations to become “The Schooled Society” (Baker, 2014). The Global Campaign for Education brought together nongovernmental organizations and teacher unions in over 150 countries to advocate for the promotion of universal primary education (Mundy & Murphy, 2000). This advocacy network echoed and amplified the earlier message of N’Krumah, the Ghanian leader who famously declared that the people would abandon him as a responsible national leader if he did not build the primary school system. Indeed, a commitment to mass schooling was expected of responsible national leadership. In the current milieu, it is hard to imagine that schooling the masses was ever a contested terrain. But there were indeed skeptics who questioned the value of compulsory schooling (see the papers in Mangan, 1994). There were certainly policies to limit time in school for children, policies such as high-​stake tests that led to early exits for most children (Eckstein & Noah, 1992). There were also policies to differentiate the experiences of school children via their early assignment to different tracks. These policies did not reflect positive assumptions about the value of extended and less differentiated schooling for all. Quite the contrary, these policies were motivated by the premise that most children were destined to find work that required limited doses of literacy and numeracy, seasoned with respect for authority. However, recent studies show a global decline in the use of high-​stakes testing at the primary and lower secondary levels (Furuta, 2021) as well as less early track assignment (Furuta, 2020). In 1970, about 70% of countries worldwide tracked students

Nation States and National Education Projects    33 at the junior secondary level. Forty years later, less than 20% continue to do so. A related study reveals the negative impact of tracking on educational expansion in more recent periods (Furuta et al., 2021). In another study, Chmielewski (2017), using Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from 2000 to 2015, finds that the share of enrollment in vocational tracks had declined in nearly every country (and conversely that the share in academic and general tracks has increased). These cross-​national changes suggest an expanded and more universalistic understanding of what constitutes educability. All were increasingly imagined to be educable and not in sharply differentiated spheres. Not surprisingly, the right to an elementary education is now enshrined in most national constitutions, and national educational ministries have become commonplace national institutions (Ramirez & Ventresca, 1992). This right is now framed as a human right, as in Article 26 of the United Nations Charter. This expanded vision of educability itself presupposes an enhanced vision of human potential, one in which all individual persons have enormous capacities worth nurturing through schooling (Baker, 2014; Benavot & Resnik, 2006). This basically is both a human right and a human capital vision. Both visions are embedded in contemporary world models of progress and justice. Not surprisingly, the scope of compulsory schooling has expanded with greater numbers of students entering secondary schools. There is no evidence of national resistance to the “education for all” agenda, especially at lower levels of education. This is not an instance of powerful actors, be they international organizations or hegemonic powers coercing commitments to expanding education. One can contend that some specific educational decisions, privatization, for instance, may be influenced by external educational aid carrots or sticks or more broadly by the diffuse authority of educational experts far removed from local scenes (Verger, 2009). However, the overall commitment to schooling the masses with individual and national development as intertwined goals is clearly derived from the pervasive sense that that this is what good nation states do. It is, of course, possible to argue that what is involved is learning from the experiences of other nation states, a form of rational adaptation. Many educational reform initiatives indeed refer to the superior educational policies and practices in other countries that supposedly led to higher levels of academic achievement or greater economic growth. The Japanese educational system was much admired in some educational circles in the United States, in the “A Nation at Risk” report for example (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). But only some features of the system were theorized as crucial to success and framed as portable best practices. Having master teachers mentoring novices was deemed worthy of emulation. Setting national achievement standards was also valued (Smith & O’Day, 1991). Having high-​stakes exams at the end of high school—​examination hell—​was ignored. Also ignored were school uniforms and the collective solidarity these symbolized (Rholen, 1989). What learning takes place is filtered by theorization, and the latter is much influenced by the dominant ideas or models in an era (Fourcade & Healy, 2017; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Strang & Meyer, 1993).

34    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee Earlier rationales for schooling girls, for example, often centered on their future roles as mothers, not their own individual development. An 1879 plan for the secondary schooling of girls in France illustrates this point: The mother speaks the language of superstition, the father that of reason. When these contradictory ideas enter the mind so malleable and impressionable and begin to germinate, the child not knowing whether to believe his mother or his father, will commence to doubt. (Maynes, 1985, p. 88)

More recent rationales are much more likely to emphasize her human capital and her human rights. The earlier rationales reflect an era when women were mainly seen as mothers and wives, and the more contemporary ones are grounded in understanding women as agentic persons (Berkovitch, 1999). More astonishing than the phenomenal growth of mass schooling is the more recent expansion of higher education across the world (Barro & Lee, 2015; Schofer & Meyer, 2005). What was a very limited enterprise at the beginning of the 20th century is now a globally expanded institution (Frank & Meyer, 2020). The expansion is not driven by a few outliers with very large populations. The earlier “American advantage” was often attributed to political and educational decentralization that facilitated competitive dynamics between different classes and status groups (Collins, 1979). But, in fact, educational expansion is now evident in centralized political and educational systems, for example, in South Korea (Douglass et al., 2009). As we pointed out earlier, gatekeeping high-​stakes tests are declining and even milder test-​based barriers to entry into higher education are challenged by the rise of test-​optional policies in American higher education, for example (Furuta, 2017). The challenges are motivated by the triumph of optimistic ideas framed with references to “late bloomers” and, more recently, to the importance of “grit” (Duckworth, 2016) and “growth mindsets” (Dweck, 2007). The early sorting function of high-​stakes tests is increasingly regarded as a waste of human capital. Early sorting is also seen as unfair to the many who did not enjoy the home background (social and cultural capital) with which to better hone and display their actual or potential talent. Also challenged are manpower planning perspectives that sought to limit higher educational growth via an analysis of labor markets that linked educational courses to job requirements. Critics of these perspectives argued that the highly educated would be entrepreneurial and innovative, creating new jobs and not simply fitting into pre-​existing occupational slots, notwithstanding Boudon (1973). Higher educational expansion in the service of the knowledge society would gain worldwide currency (Frank & Meyer, 2020). Efforts to curb its growth failed even in communist countries (Baker et al., 2004). Ironically much of the accelerated growth is driven by women, a point we address later. The premise that there was “no salvation outside higher education” (Shills, 1971) initially proposed in an ironic vein was embraced in country after country. The second world educational revolution has also intensified the authority of higher education in shaping what constitutes legitimate knowledge and fair personnel

Nation States and National Education Projects    35 allocation (Meyer, 1977). All sorts of knowledge innovations would seek the imprimatur of university standing, from computer science to women’s studies. Universities as sites of exclusive canonical knowledge eroded (Readings, 1996). And, indeed, a global explosion of university appropriate courses has become evident (Frank & Gabler, 2006). It is also clear that possession of a higher educational degree not only predicts positive occupational and related life course outcomes (Hout, 2012) but also is globally seen as a fair ticket for upward mobility. What gets derided as unfair are the obstacles some individuals face due to circumstances beyond their control, born and raised in poverty, for example, or because they are discriminated against on the basis of ascribed characteristics, race or gender, for instance. However, the authority of higher education and the ever more credential-​based society has globalized. To summarize, nation states gain external legitimacy standing by enacting models of the legitimate nation state. “Getting it right” is crucial, and there are consultants without borders to facilitate getting it right. In earlier eras, the expansion of mass schooling displayed proper commitment to the idea that a legitimate nation state needed territorially bounded loyal and productive citizens who were properly schooled. In more recent periods, this idea has been extended to the realm of higher education. The first-​ and second-​world education revolutions reflect the profound centrality of education in enacting proper and agentic nation state identity. Earlier fears about schooling the masses are not in sight. Earlier concerns about “overeducation” are less convincing. What has triumphed instead is a model of the good nation state as one in which more people have the right to get more education and more educated people are seen as vital keys to national development. Mass schooling and higher education have been clearly institutionalized as nation state projects. What were once contested terrains have become taken for granted or institutionalized domains. In what follows, we first explore the implications of this global model on what constitutes legitimate knowledge in schools by reviewing cross-​national analyses of textbooks. Next, we focus on changes in universities, the main actors in the credential societies that dominate the world. Lastly, we reflect on recent challenges to the role and centrality of educational developments in world models of progress and justice.

What Counts as Knowledge? Expansion of Curricula as Reflected in Textbooks Textbooks are important lenses through which models of society are formed and communicated. They represent not only institutional understandings about the nature of society but also are authoritative statements that communicate what society perceives as being important for its young people to know (Schissler, 1989). There are textbook

36    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee controversies because all sorts of groups and organizations see textbook content as consequential, revealing what is real and who and what is important (Apple, 1989). Most textbook studies focus on single countries. These are important in their own right but cannot shed light on whether there are cross-​national trends regarding who and what count. In what follows, we reflect on recent cross-​country studies that examined a common set of textbooks, mostly housed at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbooks in Germany. These studies employed similar methods of analysis, depicting trends and identifying national and transnational variables that accounted for these trends. These studies utilized a large number of textbooks, typically over 400, and covered countries from every region of the world, typically about 70. However, these studies also recognized the limitations of working with nonrandom samples of textbooks and countries (for more information on the textbook data collection process and analysis strategy, see Meyer et al., 2010). Figure 1.1 displays global trends reported in several cross-​national textbook studies, i.e., trends regarding human rights, individual agency, global citizenship, and emphasis on the nation state and national institutions. The underlying question in these studies is whether what counts as legitimate knowledge varies over time and, if so, whether there are global predictors. Let us first consider each trend and what the studies identified as the main determinants of the changes in textbook emphasis. Next, we reflect on the overall pattern. Figure 1.1 shows that the proportion of textbooks that explicitly mention human rights has increased globally over time. Data for Figure 1.1 draw upon a cross-​national data set of over 500 textbooks from 1950 to 2011 (see Bromley & Cole 2017; Russell et al.,

Models of the “good society” as reflected in textbooks over time, 1950–2011 1

Proportion

.8 .6 .4 .2 0 1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Year of publication National emphasis Human rights

Individual agency Global citizenship

Figure 1.1  Legitimating models of the “good society” as reflected in textbooks over time.

Nation States and National Education Projects    37 2018; Terra & Bromley, 2012, for studies using the same data set), where textbooks were coded for discussions and emphasis of various topics such as human rights, diversity, citizenship, nationalism, and international coverage of social issues. We observed items from the coding document pertaining to human rights, individual agency, global citizenship, and emphasis on the nation state that are similar to those explored in studies examining textbooks from 1970 to 2011. This finding is consistent with prior longitudinal textbook studies that there have been worldwide increases in valorized human rights (Bromley & Lerch, 2018; Meyer et al., 2010) and diversity (Jimenez & Lerch, 2019; Ramirez et al., 2009). There are two additional findings especially relevant to thinking about globalization and education. First, there is a surge in human rights emphases in the post-​1990 era. This is a period characterized by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the increase in democracies around the world (Diamond, 1999). More person-​centric understandings of progress and justice models overshadow more state-​centric ones. Thus, a strong era zeitgeist impact is found, net of the positive influence of country-​level democracy itself. Secondly, countries better connected to the world society via membership in international nongovernmental organizations are more likely to incorporate discussions of human rights and diversity into their textbooks (Bromley & Lerch, 2018; Jimenez & Lerch, 2019). This is consistent with the world society hypothesis that countries that are more embedded in the global environment would reflect the values and standards of world culture more prominently than their more isolated counterparts such as North Korea. In the latter, one can find textbooks that refer to “capitalist American” bastards (Lankov, 2013, p. 60). Textbooks are increasingly more student centered, encouraging students to develop their own opinions and views on various issues and portraying active students involved and participating in society by volunteering to help the poor or joining a political party (Bromley et al., 2011). Other studies also find that textbooks increasingly portray individuals, including from traditionally marginalized groups such as women, children, and minorities, as having agency to make their own decisions and play a contributing role in society (Lerch et al., 2017). These studies also show post-​1990 era surges as well as the positive influence of greater integration in the global environment. This increased sense of agency and empowerment is not limited to the local and national contexts. Textbooks throughout the world increasingly mention globalization and even global citizenship (Buckner & Russell, 2013). Textbooks also further emphasize and encourage students to become more aware of the world, develop skills to function in an interconnected world, and suggest ways for students to be involved and take action at the global level (Lee, 2020). In other words, textbooks do not simply transmit knowledge that indicates that more individuals have rights and are empowered participants in the world. Rather, textbooks increasingly depict a world where individuals, including children and youth, are believed to have agency and encouraged to take positive action as contributing members of national and world society (Wotipka et al., 2020). The Education for All Conferences emphasized the benefits of expanded education not only for individuals and their countries but for the world itself (Chabbott, 2003). This

38    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee worldview is reflected in the changing content of school textbooks, with its greater emphasis on individual agency addressing world problems, such as environmental issues. These ideas of increased agency are further supported by pedagogy embedded in the textbooks. Examination of pedagogical emphases in textbooks finds that students are increasingly encouraged to be active learners who construct knowledge instead of being passive recipients of information (Bromley et al., 2011). Although these studies are not indicators of what actually happens in the classroom, the fact that textbooks increasingly promote student-​centered pedagogical approaches suggests that educational ideas about how to deliver curricula have been changing to reflect the legitimated global model which emphasizes the empowered individual. Although textbooks reflect a globalizing world where individuals are empowered to engage with and take action around issues outside their own immediate communities, the historic nationalizing purpose of schooling does not go away. Textbooks continue to celebrate a distinctive national state or society, even with the slight decline in the 1980s and 1990s (Figure 1.1). Nation-​centered narratives in textbooks persist into the era of globalization and are not diminished in countries that are more economically, politically, or socially globalized (Lerch et al., 2017). In fact, as we see in Figure 1.1, more social studies textbooks emphasize the national narrative as compared to notions of human rights, individual agency, or global citizenship. What this suggests is that though the legitimating global models of human rights and empowered individualism are increasingly incorporated in textbooks, the celebration and emphasis of the national not only persist but remain important elements of what is included in social studies throughout the world. This is not a zero-​sum game, as Moon and Koo (2011) demonstrate in their analysis of textbooks in South Korea. In sum, cross-​national studies of textbooks reveal how knowledge transmitted to students in mass schooling expands and changes over time to reflect legitimating global models of human rights and the empowered individual. It is not just that mass schooling expands as more groups of people (e.g., women, minorities, economically disadvantaged) are viewed as having the right to education. Curricular content changes to reaffirm these global models as the “right knowledge” to have. Furthermore, the young are encouraged to enact the models by emphasizing their individual agency to take action as participants and contributors to society, local or global—​all the while continuing to celebrate the nation state as loyal and productive citizens.

Who Counts and What Counts in Higher Education: Celebrating Accessibility and Flexibility Higher education predates nation states, though universities evolved to become national educational projects in the era of nation states (Ben-​David, 1977). Though higher education continues to differ with respect to governance and funding issues (Clark, 2006),

Nation States and National Education Projects    39 the legitimate nation state is now expected to embrace higher education as a more accessible and more flexible institution. Greater accessibility is evident in the worldwide expansion of higher education, fueled by the legitimacy of higher education credentials in allocating and determining the life course chances of greater numbers of people. Greater flexibility is evident in the worldwide expansion of educational innovations, as manifested in the proliferation of new courses and different degrees in higher education (Frank & Gabler, 2006). The globally legitimated credential society is one where more people pursue higher education and what is pursued is increasingly shaped by the tastes and interests of more people. Who counts and what counts change over time, and the changes transcend variations in the historical legacies of universities. These changes are widely construed as progressive and fair. There are critics, and we turn to these in a brief concluding reflection. We address the greater accessibility issue by focusing on groups previously excluded from higher education, paying special attention to women and the scope of their inclusion. Next, we examine the growing flexibility of universities, shifts in the terms of inclusion that further valorized diversity and agentic empowerment. The worldwide expansion of higher education also featured the global increase in women in higher education, as measured by gross tertiary enrollment ratio for women.1 Figure 1.2a depicts this expansion, and it is clearly not a region-​specific phenomenon. Here we also see surges across the world in the more recent decades. These are, of course, decades in which broader issues regarding and affirming women’s equality gained global traction, the Ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, for example (Cole, 2005; Wotipka & Ramirez, 2008a). Not only were School enrollment, tertiary, female (% gross)

(a) 100

Percentage

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995 Year

East Asia and Pacific Latin America and Caribbean South Asia Sub-Saharan Africa

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

Europe and Central Asia Middle East and North Africa North America

Figure 1.2a  Expansion of higher education access for women across regions. (Source: UNESCO)

40    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee there more women in higher education, but between 1970 and 2010 women’s share of higher education increased worldwide (Ramirez & Kwak, 2015). One earlier reaction to this trend was to suggest that the growth was in areas of study other than STEM (Kelly, 1992). But in fact, women’s share of STEM enrollments also increased in all regions except Eastern Europe (Kwak & Ramirez, 2018; Ramirez & Kwak, 2015; Wotipka & Ramirez, 2008b). Another reaction was to call attention to the difference between enrollments and graduates. It is indeed reasonable to assume that graduating with a STEM degree is more difficult than merely being enrolled in this area. This may be especially the case for women as they face “chilly climates” and pressures to retreat to more culturally acceptable domains of study, education or the arts, for example (Charles & Bradley, 2009). But our preliminary studies of STEM graduation trends challenge even this reasonable assumption. To be sure, there are more STEM graduates who are men. However, between 1998 and 2018 women’s share of STEM graduates has increased, albeit modestly (Lee et al., 2021). Figure 1.2b shows that women in STEM relative to the college age cohort have increased in all but sub-​Saharan Africa. Inequalities still persist, and groups of people such as the poor and minorities have a more difficult time accessing higher education than their privileged counterparts. However, the ascendancy of women in higher education worldwide undercuts the earlier and established idea that universities were naturally inhabited by men (White men in the Western world). More recent concerns shift from a focus on students to (b)

Female STEM majors relative to the cohort

Mean female enrollment ratio in STEM

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1970

1980

1990 Year

2000

2010

Asia Latin America and Caribbean

Eastern Europe Middle East and North Africa

North America and Western Europe

Sub-Saharan Africa

Figure 1.2b  Percentage of female science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors out of the relevant age group, by region. (Source: Kwak & Ramirez, 2018)

Nation States and National Education Projects    41 faculty. Even in this regard though, we find an increase in women faculty across the world (Wotipka et al., 2018), indicating expanded understanding of not only who gets to participate in education but also who gets to teach and contribute to what constitutes knowledge at the university level. In retrospect, these worldwide changes should have been anticipated. The standardization and routinization of primary to secondary to tertiary education eased access for all people, including historically marginalized groups, to obtain university degrees (Frank & Meyer, 2020). Moreover, issues of barriers to access, quality, and equity became critical issues as higher education expanded, resulting in the creation of initiatives, taskforces, and offices at the university level to support efforts to diversify the student population and provide more equitable access to higher education. In America, an increasing number of universities established diversity offices and appointed senior-​ level diversity officers (Kwak et al., 2019). Similar university developments have been present in other countries such as Germany (Ortel, 2018). Programs, initiatives, and scholarships for women, minorities, and the economically disadvantaged multiplied over the 20th century and became institutionalized (Frank & Meyer, 2020). Greater accessibility to higher education is both evident and much celebrated. Both human capital and human rights scripts favor greater accessibility. Reimagined as citizens and persons, women also count. The legitimate nation state is expected to utilize these scripts and, in tandem with international organizations and consultants without borders, favor a more accessible system of higher education. One can imagine greater accessibility without greater flexibility in what counts as legitimate university knowledge. However, changes in the organization of universities are not limited to establishment of initiatives, activities, and offices to enact and reaffirm the global norm that all people have a right to pursue more higher education. The dominant notion that individuals are empowered actors who have freedom and agency to make their own choices has also influenced universities to widen their academic portfolio to cater to various kinds of perspectives and interests of individual persons (Frank & Gabler, 2006). Students and professors can break through old boundaries of sacred disciplines and canonical knowledge to claim and invoke new materials and repurpose existing materials and knowledge to their own tastes and interests (Frank & Meyer, 2002; Frickel & Gross, 2005). Though extreme in the United States, students across the world are increasingly empowered to choose among a myriad of majors and can even create their own majors by piecing together knowledge from different disciplines and subdivisions. And since students are empowered to choose from an increasingly large pool of courses with flexibility (without extensive prerequisites or involved sequences), students can shape their own pathways to a degree (Robinson, 2011). Likewise, professors are also empowered to choose among endless research topics and influence course content in a way that speaks to their own interests and tastes (Frank & Meyer, 2020). They can move beyond the confines of their own disciplines to borrow, mix, and compound other disciplines to the point where disciplinary lines, though they do exist, are blurred and new disciplines emerge and gain traction.

42    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee In the era where the “good society” is one where individuals are empowered with rights, what emerges and constitutes knowledge to be transmitted expands to encompass what is of interest and meaningful to the individuals. What counts as “knowledge” under this global model of the “good society” is much influenced by empowered individuals who have the agency to pursue and create novel inquiries, research, and disciplines. Subsequently, universities change and adapt their organization to reflect global norms as legitimate institutions by allowing for self-​designed majors, decreasing the number of required courses for all students, and establishing initiatives and programs to support interdisciplinary research for example. Thus, we find the rise of ethnic, women’s, and environmental studies as well as management and computer science. To be sure, there have always been curricular wars in universities. What is distinctive about the recent globalization era is the magnitude of the educational innovations and the rapidity of their diffusion. You can “read” feminist studies at Oxford and pursue ethnic studies at the Humboldt! The changes meet with some resistance but are not extensive enough for others. But it is clear that both greater accessibility and greater flexibility are now educational desiderata.

Concluding Thoughts National educational projects were once contested terrain. Were the masses really educable? Should everyone really pursue higher education? Was the expansion and institutionalization of mass and higher education really indicative of a legitimate nation state? Did these national educational projects signal commitment to progress and justice? Throughout the 20th century and especially after World War II, country after country answered these questions in the affirmative. International organizations and epistemic communities nudged laggards in the appropriate direction. What were once contested terrains became institutionalized or taken-​for-​granted domains. But, of course, these changes involved the erosion of earlier taken-​for-​granted realities—​dynasties, colonies, the primacy of families and kin networks, unchangeable inequalities designed by “nature” and so forth. Within these earlier frameworks, education was limited and differentiated by class, race, and gender. Education for all and education for national development are recent, though very successful ideas much linked to the legitimacy of the nation state and the empowered individual. Absent an “end of history” teleological perspective, one can recognize that the taken for granted can be challenged. Institutionalized domains can once again become contested terrains. In what follows, we briefly reflect on which educational developments are likely to persist and which are more vulnerable. First, education for individual and for national development is likely to persist. The much-​discussed ascendancy of China is not a return to the epoch of “Red over Expert” framing of progress. China is committed to expanding mass schooling and higher education as national educational projects. Its pursuit of “world class” universities

Nation States and National Education Projects    43 illustrates the ongoing value of higher education to its educational and political leadership. Its framing of “world class” in favor of science and technology is attuned to contemporary global emphases on science and technology. Students from Shanghai participate in international testing regimes and command favorable global attention. Some Chinese universities are ascending in international rankings. Surprisingly some of China’s universities also embrace progressive pedagogy, though in fact, much resistance from students ensues (Ouyang, 2003). Even more surprisingly, there are national educational guidelines that favor more progressive pedagogy, though these falter in rural schools with a lot of loose coupling between policy and practice taking place (Wang, 2013). The ascendancy of China may alter the balance between empowered individuals and national interests, with empowered individuals as human capital more emphasized. There may be a lot more state steering in the uses of education to develop human capital and corresponding less curricular innovations centered on the tastes and preferences of students and professors. This does not bode well for innovations such as women’s studies and perhaps even environmental studies. Interest in progressive pedagogy may wane. Or, alternatively, these innovations may continue but “with Chinese characteristics.” The empirical issue is whether Chinese educational developments will be globalized as world models impacting both mass schooling and higher education. Will school textbooks in the coming decades be more nation state focused? Will there be a decline in references to human rights and global citizenship? Or will we see more significant between-​region differences, implying an era of greater contestation as to what counts as knowledge and who counts in the pursuit of national development? Secondly, it is doubtful that national policy will dramatically reverse course and return to an era where women were not much seen in higher education. There are indeed efforts to re-​emphasize women’s status as mothers and wives under the banner of saving families. Women’s studies programs are likely vulnerable and especially so in authoritarian regimes in the recent climate of declining democracies. Whether we will continue to see a decline in democracies in the 21st century is unclear. However, educational participation rights earlier extended to men are more likely to be “sticky” rights for women. Newer rights claim specific to women are both more historically difficult to attain (Orloff, 1993) and more vulnerable to future challenges. Lastly, what are we to make of challenges that target the authority of experts on climate change, human sexuality, or pandemics, to cite a few examples? The authority of experts presupposes a culture in which the educational credential is taken for granted as a sign of expertise. That culture requires logics of confidence (Meyer & Rowan, 1977) to be in place, in part because the experts at times disagree, change their assessments, and often opine on matters some steps removed from the specific domains of their credentialed authority. Much trust is required of nonexperts. However, that same culture empowers an ever-​growing number of individuals. This can and has led to a proliferation of professions, with new entities seeking to become certified experts (Wilensky, 1964). Taken as a whole, the expansion of professionals strengthened the credential society.

44    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee However, more recently, the escalation of Internet-​assisted virtual communities of empowered individuals challenges authority based on educational certification (Eyal, 2019). To be sure, the challengers often cite this medical doctor or that psychologist in support of their views. But these are not challengers that seek to be incorporated into the realm of experts, the rise and professionalization of economics, for example (Fourcade, 2006). Quite the contrary, these challenges directly confront the globally validated credential society. Some of these challenges are motivated by the view that all or most opinions have equal standing because we are all entitled to have opinions. None should be privileged by “listening to the science.” This populist perspective challenges education as the institutional basis for determining what constitutes real knowledge. This challenge potentially undercuts efforts to further professionalize via educational certification with more people attuned to noneducational knowledge sites. A different but also potent challenge questions the legitimacy of higher education as justification for allocating different people to different jobs associated with very unequal wages and life chances (Jackson, 2020). Here the critique goes beyond the importance of equalizing educational opportunities. Even where the latter is to be achieved, why is the credential a fair explanation for the growing income gap between the more and the less highly educated? This social democratic perspective challenges education as the institutional basis for determining who gets ahead and to what extent. This challenge potentially undercuts education-​based efforts to rationalize inequalities. These are both fundamental challenges to the authority of education to determine what counts and who counts. The degree to which these challenges upend education-​ based models of progress and justice remains to be seen. To summarize and reiterate, the earlier expansion of mass schooling and the more recent growth of higher education were contested terrains that became institutionalized domains. What got institutionalized was a model of the good nation state as one committed to the first and second educational revolutions with education for individual and national development as overriding and interrelated goals. The world society perspective addressed these developments emphasizing their global character and the extent to which education was increasingly linked to progress (human capital) and justice (human rights). We explore what and who counts in a number of interrelated textbook analyses. These studies show an increased focus on empowered individuals but also of the persistence of the nation state. We also explored changes in who and what counts in higher education. Here we find that more categories of people (women, for example) count and what counts (fields of study) expands. More inclusive and more flexible higher education is valorized. Lastly, we reflected on different kinds of challenges to education to as an institution, suggesting which educational developments are likely to persist and which are more vulnerable.

Note 1. The gross enrollment ratio (GER) for tertiary school is calculated by dividing the number of students enrolled in tertiary education regardless of age by the population of the age

Nation States and National Education Projects    45 group which officially corresponds to tertiary education, and multiplying by 100 (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2020). The GER can be over 100% due to the inclusion of overaged and underaged students due to early or late entrants, and grade reputation.

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48    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee Lerch, J. C., Bromley, P., Ramirez, F. O., & Meyer, J. W. (2017). The rise of individual agency in conceptions of society: Textbooks worldwide, 1950–​ 2011. International Sociology, 32(1), 38–​60. Lerch, J. C., Russell, S. G., & Ramirez, F. O. (2017). Wither the nation-​state? A comparative analysis of nationalism in textbooks. Social Forces, 96(1), 153–​180. Mangan, J. A. (Ed.). (1994). A significant social revolution: Cross-​cultural aspects of the evolution of compulsory education. Woburn Press. Maynes, M. J. (1985). Schooling in Western Europe: A social history. State University of New York Press. Mazon, P. (2003). Gender and the modern research university: The Admission of women to German higher education, 1865–​1914. Stanford University Press. Meyer, J., Boli, J., Thomas, Thomas, G. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (1997). World society and the nation-​state. American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 144–​181. Meyer, J., Ramirez, F., Rubinson, R., & Boli-​Bennett, J. (1977). The world educational revolution, 1950–​1970. Sociology of Education, 50(4), 242–​258. Meyer, J. W. (1977). The effects of education as an institution. The American Journal of Sociology, 83(1), 55–​77. Meyer, J. W., Bromley, P., & Ramirez, F. O. (2010). Human rights in social science textbooks, 1975–​2006. Sociology of Education, 83, 111–​134. Meyer, J. W., Ramirez, F. O., & Soysal, Y. (1992). World expansion of mass education, 1870–​ 1980. Sociology of Education, 65(2), 128–​149. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutional organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340–​363. Moon, R. J., & Koo, J. (2011). Global citizenship and human rights: A longitudinal analysis of social studies and ethics textbooks in the Republic of Korea. Comparative Education Review, 55(4), 574–​599. Mundy, K., & Murphy, L. (2000). Beyond the nation state: Educational contention in global civil society. In H. D. Meyer & B. Boyd (Eds.), Education between state, markets and civil society—​Comparative perspectives (pp. 223–​244). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. U.S. Department of Education. Orloff, A. S. (1993). Gender and the social rights of citizenship: The comparative analysis of gender relations and welfare states. American Sociological Review, 58(3), 303–​328. Ortel, S. (2018). The role of imprinting on the adoption of diversity management in German universities. Public Administration, 96, 104–​118. Ouyang, H. (2003). Resistance to the communicative method of language instruction within a progressive Chinese university.” In K. M. Anderson-​Levitt (Ed.), Local meanings, global schooling: Anthropology and world culture theory (pp. 121–​140). Palgrave Macmillan. Ramirez, F. O. (2012). The world society perspective: Concepts, assumptions, and strategies. Comparative Education Review, 48(4), 423–​439. Ramirez, F. O., & Boli, J. (1987) The political construction of mass schooling: European origins and worldwide institutionalization. Sociology of Education, 60(1), 2–​17. Ramirez, F. O., Bromley, P., & Russell, S. G. (2009). The valorization of humanity and diversity. Multicultural Education Review, 1(1), 29–​54. Ramirez, F. O., & Kwak, N. (2015) Women’s enrollments in STEM in higher education: Cross-​ national trends, 1970–​2010. In W. Pearson, L. Frehill, & C. McNeely (Eds.), Advancing women in science (pp. 9–​49). Springer.

Nation States and National Education Projects    49 Ramirez, F. O., Meyer, J. W., & Lerch, J. (2016). World society and the globalization of educational policy. In K. Mundy, A. Green, R. Lingard, & A. Verger (Eds.), The handbook of global education policy (pp. 43–​63). Wiley-​Blackwell. Ramirez, F. O., & Ventresca, M. J. (1992). Building the institution of mass schooling: Isomorphism in the modern world. In B. Fuller & R. Rubinson (Eds.), The political construction of education: The state, school expansion, and economic change (pp. 47–​59). Praeger. Readings, B. (1996). The university in ruins. Harvard University Press. Rholen, T. P. (1989). Order in Japanese society: Attachment, authority, and routine. Journal of Japanese Studies, 15(1), 5–​40. Robinson, K. J. (2011). The rise of choice in the U.S. university and college: 1910–​2005. Sociological Forum, 26, 601–​622. Russell, S. G., Lerch, J. C., & Wotipka, C. M. (2018). The making of a human rights issue: A cross-​national analysis of gender-​based violence in textbooks, 1950–​2011. Gender & Society, 32(5), 713–​738. Schissler, H. (1989). Limitations and priorities for international social studies textbook research. The International Journal of Social Education, 4(3), 81–​89. Schofer, E., Hironaka, A. Frank, D. J., & Longhofer, W. (2012). Sociological institutionalism and world society. In E. Amenta, K. Nash, & A. Scott (Eds.), The Wiley-​Blackwell companion to political sociology (pp. 57–​68). Blackwell. Schofer, E., & Meyer, J. W. (2005). The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review, 70(6), 898–​920. Shills, E. (1971). No salvation outside higher education. Minerva, 9(3), 313–​321. Smith, M. S., & O’Day, J. (1991). Systemic school reform. In S. H. Fuhrman & B. Malen (Eds.), The politics of curriculum and testing: The 1990 yearbook of the politics of education association (pp. 233–​267). Falmer Press. Somers, M. R. (2008). Genealogies of citizenship: Markets, statelessness, and the right to have rights. Cambridge University Press. Strang, D. (1990). From dependency to sovereignty: An event history analysis of decolonization, 1870–​1987. American Sociological Review, 55(6), 846–​860. Strang, D., & Meyer, J. (1993). Institutional conditions for diffusion. Theory and Society, 22(4), 487–​511. Terra, L., & Bromley, P. (2012). The globalization of multicultural education in social science textbooks: Cross-​national analyses, 1950–​2010. Multicultural Perspectives, 14(3), 136–​143. Tsutsui, K. (2018). Rights make might: Global human rights and minority social movements in Japan. Oxford University Press. UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2020). Data for the sustainable development goals. UNESCO. Verger, A. (2009). The merchants of education: Global politics and the uneven education liberalization process within the WTO. Comparative Education Review, 53(3), 379–​401. Vreeland, J. R. (2003). Why do governments and the IMF enter into agreements? Statistically selected case studies. International Political Science Review, 24(3), 321–​343. Wang, D. (2013). The demoralization of teachers: Crisis in a rural school in China. Lexington Books. Weitz, E. D. (2019). A world divided: The global struggle for human rights in the age of nation-​ states. Princeton University Press. Wilensky, H. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 7, 137–​158.

50    Francisco O. Ramirez and Seungah S. Lee Wotipka, C. M., Nakagawa, M., & Svec, J. (2018). Global linkages, the higher education pipeline, and national contexts: The worldwide growth of women faculty, 1970–​2012. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 59, 212–​238. Wotipka, C. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (2008a). World society and human rights: An event history analysis of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. In B. A. Simmons, F. Dobbin, & G. Garrett (Eds.), The global diffusion of markets and democracy (pp. 303–​343). Cambridge University Press. Wotipka, C. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (2008b). Women’s studies as a global innovation. In A. Wiseman (Ed.), The worldwide transformation of higher education (pp. 89–​110). Emerald. Wotipka, C. M., Yiu, L., Svec, J., & Ramirez, F. O. (2020). The status and agency of children in school textbooks, 1970–​2012: A cross-​national analysis. Compare.

chapter 2

An Anthrop ol o g i c a l Perspecti v e on Gl obaliz ati on a nd Scho oli ng Kathryn Anderson-​L evitt

This chapter lays out an understanding of education around the world—​particularly schooling—​from the perspective of anthropologists. It will argue that anthropologists note and document the worldwide spread of Western-​style schooling, highlighting the roles of coercion and “soft power” in its original dissemination and in the promotion of further convergence around “global education reforms.” However, anthropologists also document the ways in which local actors translate into their own terms and sometimes resist Western schooling and global reforms, leading to the general consensus among anthropologists that, in this case as in others, “cultural differentiation tends to outpace homogenization” (Appadurai, 2015, p. 235). The chapter begins with background information on anthropologies and aligned disciplines, our understanding of “education” and “schooling,” and our approaches to studying schooling in global context. The second section discusses anthropological views on “globalization” in general. After noting anthropological interest in the global movement of things and especially of people as they impact schools, I then examine the global movement of two ideas, the original spread of a Western form of schooling, and the recent spread of “global” ideas for reforming it. The conclusion discusses some implications of continual cultural differentiation for attempts to improve schooling around the world.

52   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt

Anthropologies and Anthropologies of Education “Anthropology,” glossed as the study of human beings, refers to a family of overlapping disciplines that study human populations around the world from the beginning of humanity through the present. The anthropology that focuses on living people is variously called social or cultural anthropology, ethnographie (Gingrich, 2005, p. 138), or ethnology (Bošković & Eriksen, 2008). In some nations, social/​cultural anthropology emphasizes doing research “abroad,” and that experience gave the discipline early familiarity with processes that draw diverse parts of the world into a tighter economic network, and with the two-​way movement of things, people, and ideas. Despite the disciplinary diversity, I believe many anthropologists would agree that we try to see through two different lenses simultaneously, on the one hand, seeking to understand human life across the whole earth yet, on the other, zooming in on every­ day experiences in particular places. In addition, many anthropologists would accept three premises that guide this chapter: First, reality is socially constructed (a premise shared with neo-​institutionalists per Schofer et al., 2012); indeed, anthropology’s concept of “culture” can be understood as the process of making and remaking meaning in every social situation (Anderson-​Levitt, 2012). Second, human beings nonetheless also live in a real physical world and therefore need resources such as food and the tools for making a living—​resources that are often unequally distributed across families and across societies. Third, unequal distribution is created largely through the exercise of power by some people over others.

Anthropologies of Education Anthropologists use the word education to refer to any intervention in learning, that is, any “deliberate and systematic attempt to transmit skills and understandings, habits of thought and deportment” (Hansen, 1979, p. 28). Humans use a wide variety of methods to educate one another (Henry, 1960), whether the goal is to prepare workers, to socialize community members, or to expand intellectual horizons (Biesta, 2009). Schooling is just one subset of educational methods. We define schooling as institutionalized education deliberately divorced from everyday life (Hansen, 1979; Lancy et al., 2010; cf. Danic, 2008). This definition includes many forms, such as initiation schools and Quranic, Sanskrit, and Buddhist institutions (Dasen & Akkari, 2008). However, like other articles in this volume, this chapter will focus on Western-​style schooling, especially at the primary and early secondary levels. When studying education with attention to globalization, anthropologists use ethnography, a philosophical approach to research using participant observation, interviews, and other methods to understand everyday life and how people make sense of it in particular settings (e.g., Sánchez, 2020). A study of “global” educational policy

An Anthropological Perspective    53 may require multisited ethnography, with coherence maintained by “studying through” (Wright & Reinhold, 2013), that is, by tracing a policy “through space, through time, and through the transformation of key words and discourses” (Wright, 2016, p. 60). Ethnographers often seek to amplify the voices of less powerful actors who otherwise may be ignored, but we also attempt to “study up” (Nader, 1969), conducting ethnography with the powerful originators of policy ideas. “Anthropology of education” overlaps with other disciplines that use similar methods. Indeed, in some countries, the majority of ethnographic work on schooling has been conducted not by anthropologists but rather by sociologists (Delamont, 2011; Raveaud & Draelants, 2011; although see Filiod, 2007; Mills, 2012); psychologists (Minoura, 2011); or scholars of ethnic minorities (Eröss, 2011; Ouyang, 2011). Anthropologists also use comparison, the discipline’s oldest methodology. Particularly useful for studying globalization and education is the comparative case study approach (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017), which compares across three dimensions: “vertically,” tracing policies from macro to micro scales; “horizontally” across different local contexts; and “transversally” through time.

“Globalization” Seen From Anthropology Scholars disagree on the meaning of “globalization,” but a good starting point, simplifying from Appadurai (1996) and Trouillot (2001), is to focus on the global flow of things, of people, and of ideas. However, because “flow” can imply displacement without agency, struggle, or transformation of the terrain, I follow Anna Tsing in using the term “movement” (2000, pp. 349–​351; see also Graeber, 2002, p. 1224). For anthropologists, movements of things, ideas, and people—​ diffusion and migration—​are hardly new. Indeed, during their 100,000 to 200,000 years on earth, “most human societies have always been in interactive relations with others, forming spheres of exchange and circulation” (Appadurai, 2015, p. 233, emphasis his; see also Bentley, 1993; Graeber & Wengrow 2021; McNeill & McNeill, 2003). However, one could say that “massive flow of goods, peoples, information, and capital,” creating worldwide, unequal, economic interdependence, has occurred since the 16th century (Trouillot, 2001, p. 128, my emphasis). Granted, movements became even more massive during the 20th century, but that is partly because the human population itself has quadrupled since 1920 (Roser et al., 2019).

Power Matters Most anthropologists studying global schooling pay attention to power (e.g., Stambach & Ngwane, 2011, p. 307). This is not surprising since, with few exceptions, Western-​style

54   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt schooling originally spread beyond Europe in the context of colonialism and economic pressure. However, military force and economic force are not the only forms of power. Besides such “compulsory” power, Barnett and Duvall (2004, 2005) distinguish among the following: • “institutional” power to set an agenda or rules such that all actors are subsequently constrained, as in struggles to define Sustainable Development Goals (Tikly, 2017); • “structural” power that is built into the “underlying social structures,” such as the global capitalist economy, “that advantage some and disadvantage others” (Barnett & Duvall 2005, pp. 42–​43), such as the power of the donors who wield the funds or, more subtly, the power of English and French speakers in the Global Partnership for Education (Menashy, 2019); and • “productive” power, referring to the production of “subjectivities” (Barnett & Duvall, 2004, p. 10), such as the ability to define “what constitutes legitimate knowledge” (2004, p. 3) as in the widespread agreement that Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results and league tables matter (Tikly, 2017). While institutional power implies deliberate action, structural and productive power can operate even unintentionally. Structural power can make reforms associated with the wealthiest states seem inevitable (Barnett & Duvall, 2005), while productive power operates in the background to enhance the “attractiveness” of policies, which Nye called “soft power” (2004, p. 256). None of this means that less advantaged actors are completely powerless, as I will note in the section on policy. I refer first to states because states still matter to anthropologists (Appadurai, 2015, p. 234; Trouillot, 2001). They still function as “the supreme authorizer” of education policy within their boundaries (Levinson et al., 2009, p. 771; see also Miñana & Arango, 2011), while wealthy aid-​giving states use economic rewards and the cachet accrued from structural and productive power to influence other states’ policies. At the same time, some international organizations, founded and often funded by wealthy states, now also exercise power, including compulsory power (Barnett & Finnemore, 2005), as when the World Bank has conditioned desperately needed loans on acceptance of certain reforms. Anthropologists likewise acknowledge the growing use of power by corporations (Okongwu & Mencher, 2000, p. 108). An emphasis on power does not exclude the possibility that actors borrow ideas about schooling simply because they are good ideas. Indeed, demand from families and communities has driven much of the expansion of schooling in Africa (Lange & Yaro, 2003) while states sometimes deliberately seek out good policies from other states (Phillips, 2006); thus, some scholars propose a continuum from voluntary to coerced borrowing (Portnoi, 2016, drawing on Ochs & Phillips, 2004). However, family demand often represents a strategy for economic survival in desperately unequal state and global economies, while states may borrow because they accept the ideology of cross-​national

An Anthropological Perspective    55 economic competition legitimized by reports from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. Thus, it can be difficult to distinguish truly voluntary borrowing from the operation of subtler forms of power.

Action Is Local and Travel Means Translation From an anthropological perspective, global ideas do not become real or have impact until they exert or encounter “friction” in specific encounters (Tsing, 2005). Encounters are local in the sense that real, specific people interact with one another (and I would apply the word “local” even when an encounter is mediated by telephone, Internet, or written text). “Local” as opposed to global is also a relative term used variously to refer to encounters at national ministries, subnational units, school districts, or individual schools (Anderson-​Levitt, 2012). From this perspective encounters between real, specific people, even when labeled “global,” happen locally. Referring to global and local “levels” can therefore be a misleading metaphor; “there is no global space floating above the local” (Friedman, 2007, p. 111; see also Latour 2005, p. 177). What do anthropologists mean by “global,” then? For Tsing, the global is what travels (2005, p. 213); it spreads through “translation” (2005, p. 224). I would add that what makes an organization “global” is official recognition as being “global” by states or other actors (recognition enjoyed by UNESCO and the World Bank as arms of the United Nations), or simply a little-​challenged claim to speak for the world (as enjoyed by the OECD). Anthropologists recognize movement toward homogenization as a result of widespread diffusion, as in, for example, the spread of the English, Spanish, and Portuguese languages. However, because we understand humans as engaged in ongoing processes of making meaning (e.g., Street, 1993), when an idea claimed to be global travels to a new locality, whether presented by officials as a new policy, offered on a website, or introduced by a colleague who has encountered it elsewhere, local actors necessarily interpret it within their own frame of reference and, if they seek to implement it, must make it fit within local practices. Thus, they cannot help but remake its meaning in local terms (Anderson-​Levitt, 2012). The same form, whether television or schooling, quickly begins to be remade after traveling to a new place—​and then is the same no more (e.g., Tobin, 1992). Indeed, even as travelers share policy ideas, they tend to share them “in bits and pieces” and the ideas thus travel as “policies already-​in-​transformation” (Peck & Theodore, 2010, p. 170). Many metaphors for the remaking appear in anthropological texts: Local actors, again, “translate” the incoming idea (Shore, 2012), “appropriate” it to make it their own (Levinson et al., 2009), “indigenize” it (Appadurai, 1996, p. 32), or “creolize” it (Hannerz, 1987). These metaphors all point to the ongoing processes of cultural differentiation that happens as people remake ideas or objects, explaining why, ultimately, “globalisation is not the story of cultural homogenization” (Appadurai 1996, p. 11, my emphasis; cf. Comaroff & Comaroff, 2000, p. 305; Trouillot, 2001, p. 129).

56   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt

Movement of Things Here I shift from general theoretical background to anthropological studies of education in the context of globalization, commenting briefly on the movement of things and of people before examining the movement of ideas in more depth. Because anthropologists work in real-​world settings, we cannot help noticing the movement of things involved in the travel of schooling and its reforms. For example, publication and import of textbooks can involve a huge effort of physical distribution from, say, multinational companies to rural schools in the Global South. Schooling may also require the import of chalkboards, slates, and/​or ballpoint pens from multinational companies. Thus, schooling implies the movement of money as well, in its various tangible forms as marks in a ledger, bits in a computer file, or physical cash paid as teachers’ salaries in many parts of the Global South. Movement of things also accompanies traveling ideas; for example, a new curriculum inspired in part by the OECD’s promotion of 21st-​century skills leads to documents posted on computer networks and the publication of new teachers’ guides. Ironically, the unequal global movement of things contributes to diversity rather than homogenization on the ground by exacerbating economic inequalities within states and between states, producing inequalities in material resources and teachers’ preparation across schools (e.g., Eisenhart, 2008; Weis & Dolby, 2012).

Movement of People People on the move in the realm of schooling include educational consultants, aid officers, and Ministry personnel who have traveled to the Americas or Europe for advanced education. However, the global movement that preoccupies anthropologists of education is the massive movement of migrants and refugees and their children (Suárez-​ Orozco et al., 2011), which raises the question of how schools are educating millions of pupils moving into national school systems (Gibson & Koyama, 2011). For example, anthropologists ask whether and how schools serve migrant pupils’ needs (García Castaño & Carrasco Pons, 2011), and they uncover the ways teachers “other” migrants’ children and frame them as “culturally deprived” (Meo et al., 2019). In France, where the government prohibits recording people’s self-​identified ethnicities, ethnographers nonetheless document the salience of ethnicity for the children and grandchildren of immigrants in their interactions with schools (Ichou & van Zanten, 2019, p. 540). A pertinent strand of this research examines schools as sites for creating national citizens (Chee & Jakubiak 2020) juxtaposed to the occasional countermoves by pupils to create identities as “sojourners” (Sarroub, 2005) or as “transnational” people with a foot in two or more countries (Lukose 2007; Vandeyar & Vandeyar, 2015). Ethnographers

An Anthropological Perspective    57 also record cases in which the “reanimation of xenophobic nationalism” undermines transnational identities (Solano-​Campos, 2019, p. 63).

Movement of Ideas: Forms of Schooling This section and the next examine the global movement of ideas about education, focusing here on the spread of the Western model of schooling and in the next section on the movement of “global” education reforms.

A New Universal Western-​style schooling has spread to the entire world, as mentioned, largely due to differential power. Colonization created easier access for missionary schooling, and it later led to decisions to “civilize” larger segments of the colonized populations through state-​run schooling (e.g., Depaepe & Hulstaert, 2013; Swartz & Kallaway, 2018). Never-​ colonized states and empires like China and Japan imported Western forms of schooling “voluntarily” (Hayhoe 1992; Rappleye & Kariya, 2011), but in the context of Western military and economic expansion. Although several forms of Western schooling were disseminated, including “individual” instruction in one-​room schools, monitorial schooling, and mixed individual-​ monitorial structures, these were eventually displaced by a single form, namely, age-​graded, self-​contained classrooms (Caruso, 2015). In this model, the curriculum is divided into subjects (Tyack & Tobin, 1994), which are fairly uniform worldwide at the primary level (Meyer et al., 1992), with emphasis on numeracy and on literacy in a national language or world language (Cha, 1992). Teaching most often relies on lecture-​recitation and seatwork (LeTendre et al., 2001), although the precise use of these pedagogies varies (Givvin et al., 2005). Also, since the late 20th century, boys and girls study together almost everywhere (Rogers, 2004; Tyack & Hansot, 1990). Today, children in every society spend at least a few months if not years of their lives in schools that more or less fit this model, and it could be called a new cultural universal alongside mass media, mobile phones, and plastic containers. “Universals” are practices appearing in virtually all societies, not individuals (Antweiler, 2016). Individuals’ experiences vary, and parents may give up on schooling when it does not keep its promise of leading to employment (Kendall & Silver, 2014). Even so, in 2020, an estimated 87.2% of the world’s individuals over age 15 had experienced at least some Western-​style schooling, and by 2100 that proportion is projected to be 99% (Roser & Ortiz-​Ospina, 2016). The spread of Western-​style schooling, even when children learn little of the official curriculum, has had several consequences. Schooling provides new learning opportunities, exposing children (who might or might not have otherwise been so

58   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt exposed) to literacy, often to a world language like Spanish or a national language like Indonesian, and to the idea of being citizens of a particular state. However, attending school also reduces or eliminates other learning opportunities (Rival, 1996). Western schooling has contributed to the loss of thousands of the world’s languages and the knowledge systems embedded in their lexicons and grammars (Harrison, 2007). It has introduced instruction by strangers in places where learning used to take place only among kin or local community members. Because schools segregate children from adults and from everyday life, attendance reduces children’s “opportunities to learn from observing and from becoming involved in the mature activities of their communities” (Rogoff et al., 2005, p. 227). In the case of Guatemalan Mayan children, schooling thereby reduced occasions to learn through keen observation and group collaboration (Rogoff et al., 2003). Schooling may also interfere with the widespread practice of sibling caretaking, thereby reducing opportunities for children to learn the perspective-​ taking and empathy that it develops (Maynard & Tovote, 2010, p. 198). In addition, schooling makes children less available to help the family economy through paid and unpaid labor (e.g., Lancy, 2022), a role some children have sought out even when staying in school would improve their later earning opportunities (Schlemmer, 2002). Western-​ style schooling has also become central to the process of stratifying members of society, supplanting direct inheritance of a parent’s role (Baker, 2014; Vincent et al., 1994, p. 40). The spread of Western schooling has also affected other forms of education. For example, initiation schools in West Africa now take place in condensed time frames during school vacations, and Quranic schools likewise may take place in the hours before or after the school day. Some madrasahs have modified their curricula to include the “scientific” curriculum of Western-​style schools alongside advanced Islamic studies (Boyle, 2019). In informal education at home, Western-​schooled mothers may interact in more “school-​like” ways with their children than had been the prior norm in their society, as shown in studies of Guatemalan Mayan mothers (Rogoff et al., 2005).

Yet Divergent Pedagogies At the same time, the spread of Western schooling illustrates how local actors—​ including national policymakers as well as educators in schools—​have appropriated an incoming idea and made it their own, resulting in diverse local experiences. In richly documented comparisons of primary school classrooms in the United States, England, France, Russia, and India, Alexander (2000) demonstrated pedagogical differences rooted in history and culture across the five nations. He also identified transnational pedagogical traditions, namely, a continental European tradition of highly structured lessons traceable to 17th-​century pedagogue Comenius (Alexander, 2001, p. 519) and an “Anglo-​American nexus” focused on developmental readiness and democracy (2001, p. 520). From another part of the world, historian and anthropologist Elsie Rockwell described how teaching genres developed historically in Mexico, showing how

An Anthropological Perspective    59 contemporary teachers drew on practices rooted in national reforms of different eras as well as on more local cultures of teaching (2000, 2007). The work of Joseph Tobin and his colleagues has particular importance for claims about globalization because it challenges the idea that pedagogies converge over time (Tobin et al., 1989, 2009; see also Hayashi, 2022). Although Tobin and colleagues studied early childhood education rather than compulsory schooling, they documented in detail teaching cultures in three countries (Japan, China, and the United States) at two different moments about 20 years apart. Comparing across both time and national cultures enabled them to demonstrate that: despite modernization and globalization, Chinese, Japanese, and American approaches to early childhood education are no more alike in their core practices and beliefs than they were a generation ago. Or rather we should say that over time they have become more alike in some ways and more different in others. (Tobin et al., 2009, p. 232)

Other comparative studies using methods similar to their “video-​cued ethnography” have documented single-​moment differences in pedagogical beliefs and practices between pairs of nations (Anderson-​Levitt, 2002; Ben-​Peretz & Halkes, 1987; Fujita & Sano, 1998; Spindler & Spindler, 1987). And many single-​case ethnographies document the particularities of teaching and learning in other settings, such as Cameroon (Moore, 2010) and India (Clarke, 2001; Thapan, 2014). Anthropologists also document efforts by educators to create schooling that explicitly conforms to local community norms rather than to national or global models (e.g., Jordan, 1995; McCarty, 2001; Ladson-​Billings, 2009; Sumida Huaman & Abeita, 2018). In short, the Western form of schooling has spread throughout the globe, and its barebones structure has had an impact. Nonetheless, anthropologists like those cited here have documented the diversification that created different—​sometimes radically different—​experiences on the ground even where the outer form appears from a distance to be homogenous.

Movement of Ideas for Reforming Schooling Global Reforms Schooling as currently practiced is not serving pupils well in many places, as indicated by measures of learning and of equity (e.g., UNESCO, 2020), and hundreds of reformers have proposed to reform schooling—​that is, to give it a new form as a more just, a more liberating, or a more efficient institution. This section examines anthropological studies

60   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt of one particular set of reforms, policy ideas that have been promoted by global actors in recent decades. The global actors championing these reforms include international organizations—​World Bank, UNESCO, and particularly the OECD—​as well as large corporations and many educational consultants and academics. The reforms in question include those listed in Table 2.1, updated from Anderson-​ Levitt (2003) in light of Pasi Sahlberg’s discussion of Global Education Reform (2015, 2016) and insights from other analyses (e.g., Dale, 2000; Welmond, 2002). The label “global” refers to aspiration rather than fact, as Sahlberg listed many countries, including Germany and Japan, that “remained distant” to this “market-​based reform ideology” (2016, p. 131). The first tier of the table notes the continued expansion of schooling, including the worldwide spread of early childhood education (Wotipka et al., 2013) and the expanding availability of higher education. In the second tier, “decentralization” refers to the idea of school autonomy, which is linked with neoliberalism’s market competition and the supposed right of families to “choose” among government schools, reforms highlighted by Sahlberg (2016). The import of corporate models he noted also fits under decentralization in the sense that corporations tend to favor privatization of schools and experimentation in the interest of competition. I see “standardization” on the right side of the table as conceptually in tension with decentralization, although many observers see them as linked (Sahlberg 2016, p. 133; Verger & Curran, 2014, p. 256; Verger et al., 2019). For example, in Sweden in the 1990s, control over schooling shifted from the central government to municipalities, but at the same time a heavy burden of accountability fell on teachers (Nordin & Sundberg, 2021, p. 27). In another example of the tension, in the already decentralized United States of the late 1980s, the president argued for national standards to balance the autonomy exercised by districts and schools (Mehta, 2013, p. 194). The third tier of the table focuses on pedagogy and curriculum or learning goals. Reformers continue to promote learner-​ centered pedagogies (Schweisfurth, 2013; Tabulawa, 2013). On the other hand, Sahlberg pointed out an increased focus on the disciplinary content of reading, mathematics, and, nowadays, science—​in tension with learner-​centered instruction, which in theory “is not based on learning a rigid content-​ centered curriculum” (Schweisfurth, 2013, p. 10). I add the notion of “competencies,” Table 2.1 Proposed Global Reforms Continued expansion of early childhood, secondary, and higher education Decentralization Market competition and “choice” Corporate models and privatization

but also

Standardization Test-​based accountability Standards for learning outcomes

Learner-​centered instruction

but also

Core disciplines: Literacy, numeracy, science

Competencies (“21st-​century skills”) Teacher professionalization

but also

Teacher accountability

An Anthropological Perspective    61 also known as “21st-​century skills,” a set of interdisciplinary dispositions and skills like “critical thinking” and “creativity” and various “social and emotional” dispositions now promoted by international organisations as learning goals for the “knowledge economy” (e.g., OECD, 2018). Competencies are caught in the middle of the tension between decentralization and standardization; proponents often argue that they require learner-​centered or “active” pedagogy, yet a number of nations have incorporated specific competencies into national standards (Anderson-​Levitt & Gardinier, 2021). Finally, the fourth tier of the table, which shows teacher professionalization in tension with accountability for teachers, is an oversimplified reference to the many reforms focused on the quality of teachers and of teaching (e.g., Akiba, 2017).

Policy as the Practice of Power Reform movements are efforts to change policy, and an anthropology of policy developed in part as a response to global reform efforts (e.g., Henze, 2020; Miñana & Arango, 2011). As one indicator of interest, in the past 15 years, the keyword “policy” was used for 11 articles in the US-​based journal Anthropology & Education Quarterly and 18 articles in the Europe-​based Ethnography and Education; “neoliberalism” for 10 and 2 articles respectively, and “reform” for 9 and 4. Anthropologists see policy as not simply as text or discourse, but as “a kind of social practice, specifically, a practice of power” (Levinson et al., 2009, p. 767). As mentioned, reforms noted in Table 2.1 have been promoted through economic power as well as the “soft power” of authoritative web sites and comparative international assessment. However, anthropologists of policy also distinguish “authorized policy” from “unauthorized, or informal policy,” arguing that local actors such as teachers and pupils on the receiving end of authorized policy also make policy themselves through the way they “appropriate” (or resist) what has been mandated (Levinson et al., 2009, p. 768). As a result, “a policy is a narrative in a continual process of translation and contestation” (Shore & Wright, 2013; see also Shore, 2012).

Making Authorized Policy A few ethnographers have found ways to accomplish the daunting task of “studying up” (Nader, 1969), that is, conducting participant observation and interviews with powerful people making authorized policy. Peter Jones used his position as an insider to study workings of the European Union and its Commission, documenting contention between different units of the Commission over humanistic versus economic visions of education (2012, p. 98). Camilla Addey (2017, 2018) used interviews and participant observation to investigate the making of PISA for Development (PISA-​D) in Ecuador and Paraguay. Strikingly, Elena Aydarova gained access as an outsider to observe and interview Russian experts who shaped major reforms of teacher education and learning

62   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt goals in Russia (2019); the Russian experts, some of whom consulted on the side for the World Bank, modified a reform introducing “competencies” for all pupils as promoted by the Bank into a stratified system with distinct goals for elite pupils and the masses (Aydarova, 2021). These studies suggest two lessons about homogenization and diversification. First, the international organizations that author proposals for global education policies are hardly monoliths; there is dispute and struggle within them over what such policies should be. On this point, see also the qualitative but nonanthropological studies on early struggles within OECD over whether it was right or even possible to design the assessments that would become PISA (Morgan, 2007), and on the early lack of transnational consensus about competencies needed for the “knowledge economy” (Morgan, 2016). The second lesson is that translation from international organizations to national reformers, even when national reformers have one foot in the international organizations as in the Russian case, can result in authorized policies completely refashioned to suit a (contested) national agenda. On this point, see also qualitative nonanthropological studies on the diverse translations of national standards within federated states (Hartong, 2014) and on the processes whereby policymakers in France constructed first one and then a different competency-​based reform (Clément, 2021).

Remaking Policies in Schools and Communities More often than “studying up,” anthropologists have studied how local, less powerful educators and pupils experienced incoming policies or translated them locally. For example, regarding the continuing expansion of higher education, Aomar Boum (2008) showed how increasing university access in rural Morocco, combined with the government’s effort to decolonize the education system, marginalized rural pupils even as they gained access to university. Anthropologists have tracked reforms promoting market competition and “choice” in multiple localities, including universities (e.g., Shore, 2010; Wright & Rabo, 2012). In studies of primary and secondary settings from India to Chile, ethnographers demonstrated that “the vocabulary of ‘choice’ provides a loose and malleable language for a variety of actors to pursue widely ranging goals” (Forsey et al., 2008, p. 22; see also Forsey, 2006). In a rich case from southwest China, Jinting Wu shows how rural teachers engaged creatively with audit culture and neoliberal market mandates, arguing that their “creative tactics and hybrid subjectivities challenge the resistance–​compliance dichotomy” (Wu, 2018). Nonetheless, forcing market competition can have the negative consequence of pushing school leaders to “sell” their schools when they could otherwise have been supporting teachers to improve instruction (Delvaux & van Zanten, 2006; van Zanten, 2012). Meanwhile, test-​based accountability has drawn close attention in US-​based studies (e.g., Valli & Chambliss, 2007; Zoch, 2017). In a notable example, Jill Koyama (2009, 2010) traced the US policy No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as it was translated by New

An Anthropological Perspective    63 York City’s school district, and from there to the varied ways in which 42 different public schools in the city appropriated the policy, which mandated tutoring by for-​profit tutoring companies in “failing” schools. Although not explicitly addressing the “global,” Koyama’s ethnography is a model of a critical comparative case as laid out by Bartlett and Vavrus (2017); it moves “vertically” from the state of New York to the city school district to particular schools, and also compares “horizontally” across the schools, demonstrating “the remarkable variation in responses to NCLB across contexts” (Koyama, 2010, p. 6). Koyama’s focus on private tutoring companies also highlights the growing role of corporations that Sahlberg (2016) included as part of the Global Education Reform Movement. In another ethnographic study of corporate intervention, Geoffrey Saxe and Kenton Kirby examined implementation of the “One Laptop per Child” program in a remote part of Papua New Guinea (2018). Their analysis demands attention for its nuanced theoretical conception of “context,” which they describe as a dynamic process “inseparable from the activities of individuals” (2018, 407), “historically contingent,” and therefore not predictable (409), with “the potential to give rise to multiple trajectories” rather than follow a single pathway (2018, p. 409). In the domain of curricular reforms, anthropologists and other qualitative researchers have followed local reactions to efforts by the World Bank and OECD to get states to include “21st-​century skills” or “competencies” among national standards (Anderson-​Levitt et al., 2017; Fichtner, 2012). While interdisciplinary competencies such as “critical thinking” and “collaboration” are often promoted to develop “human capital” for the “knowledge economy,” some competencies are also cast as important to develop citizenship in democracies (Gardinier & Worden, 2010), or even global citizenship (Gardinier, 2021). Particularly relevant to the issue of globalization is that several states—​Sweden, England, and Poland—​have backtracked from the 21st-​century skills they had previously built into national learning goals, suggesting a swing of the pendulum rather than a pattern of convergence (Anderson-​ Levitt & Gardinier, 2021). In the realm of pedagogy, learner-​centered instruction, a complex spectrum of approaches (Schweisfurth, 2013), has attracted close attention from anthropologists. Arathi Sriprakash (2012) traced the historical development of two learner-​centered instructional programs in India, documenting influence by the World Bank, the European Community, UNICEF, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands but also by a Krishnamurti Foundation school in India. She then turned to interpretations of learner-​ centered instruction in two programs in the state of Karnataka, providing ethnographic details on how teachers reconfigured each program to adapt to their working conditions as well as to their own deficit models of rural children (cf. Sarangapani, 2003). In another case, US-​based anthropologists studied their own effort to introduce learner-​centered pedagogy among groups of teachers in Tanzania, likewise acknowledging not only European and US roots but also local precedent in the form of Nyere’s Education for Self-​Reliance (Vavrus & Bartlett, 2012, 2013). They followed secondary teachers whom they themselves had trained into their classrooms, showing how the teachers adapted

64   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt the pedagogy to their own understanding of knowledge as something predetermined, not constructed.

Conclusion and Discussion Ongoing Differentiation This review of anthropological research on globalization and schooling teaches three lessons. First, in the case of schooling, as in many other human endeavors, “no anthropologist . . . argues that the global future will be culturally homogeneous” (Tsing 2000, p. 339). Anthropologists do indeed acknowledge processes of homogenization such as the spread of Western-​style schooling to every society. We also document its impacts on languages spoken in communities, on familiarity with literacies, on what young people learn and no longer learn, and often on typical ways of learning—​ although the specific impact in any particular society depends on specific prior practices. However, anthropologists have also demonstrated that educators and pupils regularly translate Western-​style schooling into distinctly different lived experiences in different nations and sometimes even in different neighborhoods within the same city (e.g., Eisenhart, 2008). Likewise, as globally minded reformers seek to reform the original form to introduce market competition, standardized testing and autonomy but also accountability, learner-​centered pedagogies, and standardized learning goals, anthropologists and fellow ethnographers document how local actors translate and sometimes subvert traveling policies to make sense of them within their own intellectual frameworks, and to adapt them to local constraints. Ethnographic studies document ambivalence or outright resistance among many local actors to reforms such as market competition. Other reforms such as learner-​centered instruction sometimes appeal philosophically to local educators but fit poorly with material conditions in their classrooms. The end result is that traveling policies, already contested within organizations that promote them, diversify further as hundreds of millions of educators and their billion pupils and students work to translate them in local encounters all over the world. This lesson does not imply that local is always and automatically better. Aydarova’s research in Russia (2021) illustrates how local actors can reinterpret a traveling policy to the detriment of working-​class pupils. Some local logics and practices also maintain the exclusion of girls or of minoritized populations. Moreover, there may be multiple local perspectives in competition; just as there is contestation within international organizations over how to define global policies, there is often contestation over how to translate policies at the national and district levels (e.g., Aydarova, 2019). Rather, the lesson simply means that attempts to bend local practices to a single arc, one defined by a relatively few decision-​makers and scholars based in affluent countries, will not lead to convergence on homogenized practices because local actors will necessarily remake reforms. If momentary convergence seems to appear, it will not last for

An Anthropological Perspective    65 long. Also, what looks like convergence may turn out to be a swing of the pendulum, a shift from one side to the other in perennial cultural debates such the tension between learner-​centered and content-​centered pedagogy.

Power A second lesson is that Western-​style schooling and later reforms have spread in large part due to the exercise of power. In fact, some anthropologists of education policy state very simply that “policy formation is best conceived as a practice of wielding power” (Levinson et al., 2009, p. 771). Sometimes power has been exercised baldly in the form of colonial conquest or conditions placed on crucial loans; in other cases, states, international organizations, or corporations exercise “soft” power by supporting and reporting research and creating comparative assessments that enhance the legitimacy of selected reforms. Structural and productive power can enhance the perceived inevitability if not the legitimacy of reforms favored by advantaged actors without direct action by those actors. Thus, even when families and decision-​makers willingly choose certain educational options, their choices may have been biased by economic need or desire for prestige in a system shaped by structural inequalities. Ethnographers and other qualitative researchers make visible policy as a practice of power by describing struggles within bodies like the European Commission and the OECD over the creation of proposed reforms, standardized tests, and similar tools. They also make the exercise of power visible when exposing local actors’ overt resistance to policies or efforts to manipulate waves of incoming reforms.

States A third lesson—​one with which many political scientists agree (Guillén, 2001)—​is that even as the power of international organizations and corporations grows, the state matters. It is national ministries—​or in federal systems, subnational ministries (Hartong, 2014)—​that translate reform ideas into authorized policy. Thus, when local actors experience reform imposed “from above,” they often experience it as coming from the state. Moreover, translations of a global idea such as “21st-​century skills” by national ministries of education can vary markedly (Care et al., 2016). As described earlier, anthropologists have also documented the continuing role of the state, through its schools, in converting the children of migrants into national citizens, or in excluding them from full belonging.

Implications The implication from this review is to avoid placing trust in a single form of schooling or a simple list of reforms. Advocates of global reforms should not expect them to translate

66   Kathryn Anderson-Levitt uniformly in local contexts, and should beware of unintended negative consequences in new contexts, as amply documented in ethnographic work. Making change to improve schooling is best done by school leaders and teachers themselves, provided with the time and support to work year after year (Erickson, 2014). In fact, this review implies that making change in schooling is work actually accomplished by no one other than educators in local schools, however much they are inspired or pushed by district, ministry, or global reformers. Local educators are the ones who, within the constraints of layers and layers of prior reforms, struggle over the purposes of education within their school (Biesta, 2009) and over the methods they use to try to achieve those purposes. Ideally, they do that in dialogue with the pupils and communities they serve. As noted, local interpretations are not guaranteed to be just, and they may well be contested. Therefore, there can be roles for outsiders, who can gently and nonjudgmentally but persistently raise questions about justice, such as “Who benefits and who does not?” or “Are you remembering everyone?” (Ladson-​Billings & Gomez [2001] offer one example of ethnographers doing such work). In the same vein, outsiders can use their research to amplify the voices of local actors who are not being heard, as ethnographers have often done. Importantly, actors beyond individual schools, ideally national or subnational governments, must supply the resources, including time, for educators to do the work over the years that improving schooling requires. Outsiders to a school, beginning with local pedagogical counselors or inspectors, can also facilitate the sharing of ideas not about global reforms or “what works” in general, but about “what worked at a particular moment in a particular school”—​ideas that can inspire local educators to adapt them to their own circumstances. Again, the lesson from the ongoing diversification of reforms imposed or borrowed from elsewhere is that it is and will be local educators who do the work of improving schooling. They need to be provided with the opportunities and support to make education both stimulating and useful for their pupils. Although the task is urgent in many places, real reforms require long-​term—​in fact, permanent—​efforts at helping pupils learn better what they need to learn. Reformers will have to accept that there is probably more than one way to acquire literacy or to develop numeracy, and that educators and families will not always agree on the purpose of schooling. The educators and their allies will move toward the goal of all pupils learning, and learning better, by shaping schools or other educational settings that probably turn out to be at least as diverse as are present-​day schools around the world.

Acknowledgments Thanks to Xavier Dumay for thought-​provoking questions, and to colleagues in anthropology and other disciplines whose work, cited and uncited, informed this chapter. Although the chapter refers to “we anthropologists,” the interpretations are my own.

An Anthropological Perspective    67

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chapter 3

Histori c a l Institu ti ona l i sm in Edu cati on a nd Gl obaliz at i on Lukas Graf

Introduction Historical new institutionalism (HI) is one of the major schools of thought used to analyze how globalization leads to institutional changes in educational systems. HI emphasizes the relevance of temporal sequences, path dependencies, and critical junctures in the study of education and institutional change. Due to long-​standing historical legacies and complex actor constellations, education systems are often considered to be strongly path dependent and resistant to reforms (Busemeyer & Trampusch, 2012). Early versions of HI offered one main explanation for the occurrence of institutional change in strongly path-​dependent contexts. This explanation referred to exogenous shocks to institutional systems, for instance, related to technological change or major political conflicts, that would create a critical juncture and, in turn, a moment of contingency allowing change agents to alter the prior institutional trajectory (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; North, 1990). Newer versions of HI offer tools to analyze institutional changes also in the absence of exogenous shocks, focusing on endogenous change and the possibility of gradual changes to path-​dependent institutions, which, however, may nevertheless add up to transformative change over time (Streeck & Thelen, 2005). Through this lens, globalization—​or the “transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions” (Held et al., 1999, p. 16)—​is typically captured as globalization pressures related to, for instance, increasing cross-​border activities in production or trade (Campbell, 2004). In HI, such globalization pressures are usually not so much framed as exogenous shocks—​the focus is rather on how domestic

Historical Institutionalism   77 actors translate them into endogenous change processes, leading to distinct trajectories of institutional development, which depend on specific national-​institutional contexts. This chapter first reviews recent contributions to HI linked to the study of education and globalization, illustrating how this approach can help scholars grasp how change agents—​that is, the actors that actively seek to change a given status quo—​may achieve educational reforms in the context of globalization despite obstacles to change (e.g., path dependencies or veto players). From this perspective, globalization is not seen as isomorphic pressure that leads to convergence across countries (Baker, 2014; Meyer et al., 1997). Rather, it is captured as globalization pressures—​for instance, to deregulate the economy (Baccaro & Howell, 2011) or to upskill workers in the rising global knowledge economy (Brown et al., 2012)—​that may apply “globally” but are dealt with in specific ways by actors on the ground.1 This implies that the outcome is shaped by the institutional context in a specific country or policy field. Here, key factors include the position and strength of the veto players to an institutional reform and the discretion given to relevant actors to reinterpret a given institutional configuration (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). After introducing the aforementioned debates and concepts in general terms, the chapter theorizes the link between globalization and modes of gradual institutional change in education, with special reference to the case of vocational education and training (VET).2 While the literature review shows that HI is beginning to have a significant impact in research on all sectors of education—​from early childhood education to higher education (HE)—​its contribution is most advanced in VET (Thelen, 2004). VET represents a policy field situated at the nexus of education and the economy in which multiple public and private actors tend to cooperate in a decentralized manner (Emmenegger et al., 2019). Therefore, the VET sector can be regarded as an ideal example to demonstrate the analytical strength of HI which, like other political economy approaches (e.g., Hall & Soskice, 2001), has a pronounced interest in the interaction of multiple actors and socioeconomic spheres in the economy. Globalization presents the policy field of VET with a major challenge. In the case of VET, one of the most profound influences of globalization is related to academization—​ that is, the rising salience of academic forms of knowledge production and academic qualifications (Severing & Teichler, 2013)—​and, specifically, the rapid growth of HE enrolments worldwide (Schofer & Meyer, 2005). Globalization is associated with structural shifts that have led to an expansion of HE relative to VET. This is visible in the general increase in the participation in academic relative to vocational programs in the past decades (Benavot, 1983; Powell & Solga, 2010). The growing demand for academic skills on the sides of both employers and individuals results from a more or less global transition from manufacturing to a service and knowledge economy (Andersen & Hassel, 2013; Mayer & Solga, 2008), the digitalization of education and the world of work (Schmidt & Tang, 2020), the growing influence of large export-​oriented firms (Thelen & Busemeyer, 2012), and an influential world polity, represented by international organizations like the United Nations (UN) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Martens et al., 2007), who have long promoted

78   Lukas Graf the expansion of HE.3 All these challenges are inseparable from globalization, which is why they are here understood as globalization pressures, pushing for educational expansion and academization. In recent years, this academization challenge has prompted a range of reforms to strengthen VET (Graf, 2018; Wolter & Kerst 2015). These reforms have the goal to promote changes that help to maintain the societal and economic function that VET ideally fulfils, for instance, in terms of providing youth with practice-​oriented polyvalent skills (Bosch & Charest, 2008) and a stable pathway into the labor market (Protsch & Solga, 2016), while allowing employers to screen and train their future workforce (Culpepper 2003), as well as supporting a diversified production strategy (Streeck, 1991). HI is well fitted to explore the institutional trajectories that derive from the aforementioned pressures on national VET systems—​starting with the premise that in a changing environment, an institution can only be maintained if it constantly evolves (Streeck & Thelen, 2005). Adopting a sectoral HI perspective, this chapter argues that in view of globalization pressures on VET promoting increasing academization and educational expansion, the dominant pattern of institutional change on which the respective policy responses rely is layering. This mode of change implies that new institutions or rules are added on top of existing ones, instead of replacing them. To illustrate the argument, the chapter presents case studies of recent institutional reforms in the German skill formation system, representing one of the world’s largest VET systems. The following section reviews the state of the literature on HI and education, with a special focus on globalization. Next, the chapter presents main theoretical tools of the HI framework and how it can be operationalized for the study of institutional change in education in the context of globalization pressures. This is followed by the case study on globalization, academization, and gradual change in German VET. The conclusion discusses the generalizability of the proposed sectoral HI perspective as well as prospects for further research linking HI and education in a globalizing world.

Historical New Institutionalism in Education: A Review HI has been applied to various educational sectors, from early childhood education to HE. While this body of literature overall is still rather small, it is growing rapidly. Most of the contributions originate from the last few years, indicating that HI is increasingly being picked up by scholars studying education. This section provides an overview on applications of HI in the domain of education, providing examples for different educational sectors. The review suggests that most of these HI studies have looked at European countries (e.g., German-​language regions, France, Scandinavia, Benelux, and the United Kingdom), the European Union (European Higher Education Area, Bologna

Historical Institutionalism   79 process), Anglophone countries (Australia, Canada, and the United States), and Asia (China, India, Korea, and Japan). There are some few studies that apply HI to early childhood education and childcare. For instance, Lewis and West (2017) analyze continuity and change in early childhood education and care in England under austerity. Offering a case study of Japan, Nishioka (2018) studies gradual policy changes in the privatization of childcare service. Wang and Lee (2020) trace institutional changes in quality assurance of early childhood education, focusing on the case of China. In the sector of secondary education, HI studies look, for instance, at the case of federalist systems (especially Germany) and how different states embark on distinctive reform trajectories. Edelstein and Nikolai (2013) focus on structural change at the secondary school level focusing on the determinants for school reform policies in Saxony and Hamburg. Powell et al. (2016) explore the impact of path dependence on the effects of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on education systems comparing German states. Contrasting two federal systems (that of Germany and the United States), Niemann et al. (2018) show how institutional path dependencies shape the outcome of international, large-​scale student assessments on education. Maroy et al. (2016) speak to the theme of globalization by analyzing policy trajectories in France and Quebec, considering historical legacies related to earlier educational policy choices. There are also some HI studies looking at the training of teachers and educators. Thus, Lu (2019) studies the historical thread of teacher education policy in China, while Geiss and Westberg (2020) compare the emergence of training regimes for early childhood professionals in Sweden and Switzerland. In the sector of HE, prime examples of HI studies explore the impact of European educational policies. For example, Dobbins and Knill (2014) consider historical legacies in university governance related to “soft” Europeanization. Barret (2017) shows that the Bologna process is part of a path-​dependent trajectory of integration in Europe. Feeney and Hogan (2017) adopt a path-​dependent approach exploring policy harmonization in relation to qualification frameworks in the European Higher Education Area. At the national level, Schmidt (2017) examines different path developments resulting from quality assurance policies in Scandinavian HE systems. However, while HI is beginning to have a significant impact in research on HE and other educational sectors, its contribution is still most pronounced in the sector of VET. Studies of VET have been instrumental to theory development in HI. The most prominent example of this is the work by Thelen (2004) in which she explores the evolution of institutions at the example of vocational skill formation and incremental change. Her book represents a steppingstone for the present-​day understanding of gradual institutional change in HI. There have since been a range of studies that apply HI to VET. For example, Trampusch (2010) carves out transformative and self-​preserving change in the Swiss VET system. Graf et al. (2012) identify gradual change in the changing relationship between apprenticeship training and school-​ based VET in Austria. Analyzing the Swedish case, Persson and Hermelin (2018) trace incremental institutional changes to explain an “anomaly” within a statist VET system, namely the technical college scheme. Schneider and Pilz (2019) apply HI to

80   Lukas Graf analyze the institutional embeddedness of polytechnics in the Indian education system. Fortwengel et al. (2019) carve out distinct trajectories of institutional renewal of apprenticeship training in Australia, England, and the United States. Building on the varieties of capitalism approach and HI, Busemeyer and Vossiek (2016) show that common structural pressures are not leading to a full-​scale convergence in the German and British skill formation systems. Overall, this review shows that only in a few cases do analyses of HI and education work explicitly with the concept of globalization (Busemeyer & Vossiek, 2016; Maroy et al., 2017). One likely reason for this is that the theoretical enterprise of HI has developed in tandem with institutional approaches in comparative political economy that emphasize the nation level as the main unit of analysis (Hall & Soskice, 2001). Yet in several HI studies, specific international influences on national or subnational education systems are studied, as in the case of international large-​scale student assessments (Niemann et al., 2018), UN conventions and agencies (Powell et al., 2016), or European educational policy (Barret, 2017; Feeney & Hogan, 2017). The review also indicates that HI studies have only recently been extended more broadly beyond the sector of VET. Due to the close link between HI and VET, this educational sector is given special attention in this chapter. This is not least due to VET representing a policy field deeply embedded in national labor markets and respective systems of industrial relations, both being fields extensively studied by HI scholars (Streeck & Thelen, 2005), making it a particularly interesting case for the analysis of the impact of globalization pressures on skill formation. In other words, as HI studies of globalization tend to focus on economic aspects of globalization, and because VET is closely related to the economy and labor markets, the VET sector represents a good starting point for a discussion of the relationship between globalization and education from a HI perspective.4 Next, the chapter presents the HI framework with a focus on its contribution to the analysis of institutional change.

Theoretical Framework: Analyzing Globalization and Academization Through HI The HI Toolbox: Path Dependency and Modes of Gradual Change This section introduces HI with a focus on the concepts of path dependence, critical junctures, and the gradual modes of change. As Pierson (2004, p. 179) observes, “[ . . . ] policymakers operate in an environment fundamentally shaped by policies inherited from the past.” For instance, in the case of many established institutional systems of VET, there are powerful constraints built into the system that prevent an

Historical Institutionalism   81 outright defection from the nationally standardized regulative VET framework. These constraints include institutional complementarities between VET and the industrial relations system, such as collective bargaining, and labor-​market security regulations (e.g., Estévez-​Abe et al., 2001) that link the VET system to such related fields, and the overall institutional configuration of the national political economy. These linkages also make it difficult to achieve change in one field unless there is corresponding change in the other ones (Amable, 2003). In such a context, newer HI approaches are suitable means for identifying institutional changes for which no critical juncture is necessarily required. Broadly speaking, definitions of institutions usually refer to some sort of regulative, normative, or cultural-​cognitive social ordering that “provide stability and meaning to social life” (Scott, 2008, p. 48). HI is mainly referring to the regulative dimension of institutions or the formal and informal rules and procedures, for instance, codified in the law or deployed by states or firms (Thelen & Steinmo, 1992). Institutional theory has long tended to explain path dependency and institutional stability rather than institutional change. The basic idea of path dependence is that established institutions, or the “interdependent web of an institutional matrix” (North, 1990, p. 95), typically generate conditions that strengthen patterns of institutional stability (Pierson, 2000, p. 255). In this context, classical institutional theory has usually accounted for change processes “merely” via exogenous shocks that unsettle a given social institutional ordering and lead to critical junctures. As a result, change could mostly be envisaged only as a form of radical change presupposing an exogenous shock that creates a moment of contingency opening a window for change (Djelic & Quack, 2007). This earlier emphasis on long phases of institutional stability punctuated by periods of exogenous shocks and subsequent episodes of path departures (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993) largely neglected the role of agency in creating more endogenous forms of change that can but need not be exogenously induced. In recent years, institutionalists have developed fine-​grained concepts to analyze endogenous forms of gradual change that may, for instance, be influenced by globalization pressures. This transition builds on a more dynamic understanding of institutions not mainly as constraining but also as enabling agency. This allows HI to focus on processes of endogenous change influenced by globalization pressures in a more grounded way than, for instance, in the case of studies highlighting globalization in the form of exogenous shocks or global isomorphism and convergence. Thus, Streeck and Thelen (2005, p. 16) emphasize that “What an institution is defined by [is] continuous interaction between rule makers and rule takers during which ever new interpretations of the rule will be discovered, invented, suggested, rejected, or for the time being, adopted.” Similarly, Campbell (2004, p. viiii) sees institutional change as “constrained innovation,” stressing that next to constraining the range of options available to actors, institutions can enable actors to strive for institutional innovation. In other words, “institutions also provide principles, practices, and opportunities that actors use creatively as they innovate within these constraints.” In line with these definitions, HI scholars began to develop typologies for different modes of such change based on constrained innovation. For instance, Ebbinghaus (2005) discusses several “branching pathways” (path cessation,

82   Lukas Graf path switch, path departure, and path stabilization). The present chapter mainly refers to the four modes of gradual institutional change that are today most frequently applied by HI scholars studying endogenous forms of change. Streeck and Thelen (2005), similar to Hacker (2004), identify the following four modes: (a) displacement, (b) layering, (c) drift, and (d) conversion. In all four modes, incremental changes over time can add up to transformative change, and substantial institutional change may be masked by relative stability on the surface: (a) when existing rules are removed and new ones are introduced, this is displacement; (b) when, instead of replacing existing institutions, new institutions are added on top of existing institutions, this is layering (see also Schickler, 2001); (c) drift refers to shifts occurring in the external conditions of a rule, implying that the rule formally stays the same but that its impact changes (Hacker, 2005); (d) when rules are interpreted and implemented in new ways but formally stay the same, this redirection or redeployment is called conversion. Recent work by Mahoney and Thelen (2010, pp. 18–​22) is instructive in this regard, as it links each of these modes of gradual institutional change to a typical combination of (1) key characteristics of the political context and (2) the targeted institution (Table 3.1).5 The political context is defined in terms of the veto possibilities (strong or weak), whereas the characteristics of the targeted institution refer to the level of discretion in the interpretation or enforcement of a particular institution (low or high). Where the political context gives the defenders of the status quo strong veto possibilities, potential change agents will find strategies of displacement and conversion less feasible. This is because—​unlike layering and drift—​they require direct changes to the targeted institution. However, where the targeted institution offers potential change agents a low level of discretion in interpreting or enforcing that institution, drift and conversion strategies are less likely to be successful, as both these modes rely on significant leeway in how the institutions are implemented. Drift often builds on a gap between institutions and how

Table 3.1 Modes of Change in Relation to Characteristics of Political Context and Targeted Institution Characteristics of Targeted Institution (A)

Characteristics of the political context (B)

Low Level of Discretion in Interpretation/​Enforcement (A.1)

High Level of Discretion in Interpretation/​Enforcement (A.2)

Strong veto possibilities (B.1)

Layering

Drift

Weak veto possibilities (B.2)

Displacement

Conversion

Source: Mahoney and Thelen (2010, p. 19); annotations added by author.

Historical Institutionalism   83 they are enforced. Such gaps usually occur when a specific institution is not strongly enforced. Conversion builds on the ambiguities related to a specific institution, which allow it to be reinterpreted for a different purpose.

Globalization Pressures and Gradual Institutional Change In HI, globalization is often used to refer to significant increases in cross-​border flows of economic and social activities, including production, capital, and trade (Campbell, 2004) but also growing global competition leading to swift changes in skills demands (Di Maio et al., 2020) that in turn induce educational expansion and academization processes (Durazzi, 2019; Graf, 2018). Linking HI to globalization, the strength of HI is that it allows us to analyze how specific globalization pressures get translated in view of different domestic institutional configurations. A classic example of this would be how pressures to liberalize and deregulate markets linked to global production chains are taken up in specific national political economies (Thelen & Wijnbergen, 2003). Thus, while globalization theorists and organizational institutionalist often have maintained that globalization leads to more homogenous institutions across countries (Meyer et al., 1997), from a HI perspective, we would expect different trajectories of change rather than convergence, given the robustness of domestic institutions (Campbell, 2004) and political coalitions that mediate external globalization pressures (Sancak & Özel, 2018). Furthermore, HI scholars are interested in the interrelation between different socioeconomic spheres. When studying the impact of global trends within national skill formation systems, HI often considers the interactions and complementarities with developments and actors in the closely related realm of industrial relations (Strebel et al., 2020). Given gradual changes but persistent differences in industrial relations systems (Thelen, 2014), this further explains why HI studies highlight national differences in the adjustment of education and training systems to globalization pressures. For HI scholars, the arena of domestic reform politics is usually the main unit of analysis (Trampusch, 2009). That is, they study how globalization pressures are playing out in the domestic arena, in which endogenous change dynamics play a crucial role. In this context, the modes of gradual change can help us understand how pressure for change that derives from the outside (here: globalization) activates actors in the relevant field in the domestic arena, especially if this field is characterized by path dependency but provides some room for endogenous strategies of gradual change, depending on the targeted institution and the political context (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). Thus, the HI perspective and in particular the modes of gradual change make it possible to capture how globalization—​understood as concrete globalization pressures (here related to academization and educational expansion)—​play out in specific domestic cases characterized by path dependence (here: the German VET system). It is interesting to observe that we still lack an understanding of whether specific policy fields are more likely associated with a specific mode of change. Against this

84   Lukas Graf backdrop, this chapter explores whether one can observe a dominant mode of change in terms of how VET adjusts to global academization. In view of ongoing globalization and academization pressures, the core argument of this chapter is that in the case of VET, institutional change in the form of layering is likely to represent the dominant pattern. This is argued to be, first, due to VET often being strongly institutionalized through national VET legislation regulating multiactor cooperation, leaving limited room for discretion or creative reinterpretations in terms of the interpretation of rules (A.1). The second main reason is vested interests and strong veto powers of key private and public stakeholders in the VET system (often including business, unions, and state agencies) (B.1). Beyond this, VET is usually deeply embedded in national legacies related to distinct occupational traditions, national labor markets, and respective systems of industrial relations (Amable, 2003; Busemeyer & Trampusch, 2012; Hall & Soskice, 2001), which render radical forms of change rather unlikely.

Case Selection, Methods, and Data In the case of VET, the most profound influence of globalization is manifest in the increase of academic relative to vocational educational programs (Benavot, 1983; Powell & Solga, 2010), driven by a growing demand for academic skills, both on the side of employers and individuals. A key consequence is that actors who want to prevent VET from losing its significance are seeking reforms that maintain the societal role of VET—​which includes but is not limited to generating smooth transitions from education to work also for disadvantaged youth (Bonoli & Wilson, 2019). In this context, HI is well fitted to analyze institutional patterns through which globalization plays out on the ground at the national and subnational levels. For this purpose, this chapter presents case studies of recent institutional reforms in the German skill formation system, which is well known for its tradition of apprenticeship training and full-​time vocational schooling. As it represents one of the world’s largest multiactor VET systems (Busemeyer & Trampusch, 2012; Culpepper, 2003), here the effect of the global trend of academization should be particularly sizeable. However, the findings for Germany should to some extent be transferable to other countries that feature a tradition of multiactor VET systems and, beyond VET, to other educational sectors characterized by strong path dependence, the presence of public and private actors with vested interests in the status quo, and an institutional context offering limited discretion to change agents. This chapter focusses on two major areas of activity to maintain VET in the era of academization. In each of these, globalization pressures can be expected to play out through endogenous institutional change as change agents work to translate an incrementally growing globalization pressure into concrete reforms. The first area of activity is the reconfiguration of the relationship between VET and HE. This area of activity is further broken down into two major change processes. The first one

Historical Institutionalism   85 is the development of hybrid study programs at the nexus of VET and HE that transpose the principle of work-​based training characteristic for VET to HE (Graf, 2018). In Germany, the core example of this is dual study programs that have been rapidly growing in recent years (Ertl, 2020). The second major change process relates to reforms that increase the permeability between VET and HE. This process is about enhancing HE access options for VET graduates (Bernhard, 2017; Powell & Solga, 2010). In this way, the attractiveness of VET is increased as it does not represent a “dead end.” Here, the key example is a policy promoted by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder (KMK) that regulates HE access for VET graduates in Germany. The second area of activity to maintain VET in the era of academization relates to reforms in the VET governance system that aim to create innovation in VET, strengthen the commitment of key stakeholders—​on the part of both training firms and apprentices—​and, more generally, improve the coordination among all involved actors. Again, this area of activity is broken down into two major change processes. The first major change process refers to the creation of additional governance platforms at the national and state levels, steered by the responsible state agents at the respective governance levels, that allow the relevant public and private stakeholders to develop new policy responses to strengthen VET. The prime example in Germany is the Alliance for Initial and Further Education and Training (Allianz für Aus-​und Weiterbildung, AfAW) (AfAW, 2019). The second change process relates to the creation of European governance platforms and derives from European educational policy aimed at improving the conditions for apprenticeship training in Europe. The main instance of this is the European Alliance for Apprenticeship (EAfA) (EC, 2017). The study analyzes institutional changes mainly during the two decades from 2000 to 2020—​a time when massive educational expansion of higher levels of education started to exert significant pressure on VET systems. Regarding the comparative method, it applies the method of parallel demonstration of theory (Skocpol & Somers, 1980). More specifically, the two areas of activity and the two respective change processes are analyzed to examine whether the argument about layering in the context of VET adjusting to globalization pressures is supported or not. To uncover and explore pertinent developments in VET and understand contemporary change processes, the case studies rely on process analysis, which has special value for historical-​institutionalist analyses and the examination of theory-​oriented explanations in the context of small-​n case studies (see Mahoney, 2004). The process tracing is carried out on the basis of available secondary sources, document analysis, and numerous expert interviews (Gläser & Laudel, 2009) with key stakeholders in the field. Next, the case studies are presented. For each main area of activity, a description of the outcome of the respective change process is presented before tracing their historical evolution.

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Case Studies: Globalization, the Knowledge Economy, and Academization—​Strengthening VET in Times of Global Academization Reconfiguration of the Relationship of VET to HE Hybrid Study Programs Academization implies that firms face a shrinking pool of talented youth interested in entering dual VET at the upper-​secondary level (Powell & Solga, 2010). As more and more young talent gets diverted into HE, this poses a threat for the traditional German model of diversified quality production that builds significantly on workers with industry-​specific skills (Streeck, 1991). Some German employers fear that the growing number of HE graduates are receiving a predominantly academically oriented education and, hence, are more removed from the actual world of work (Hillmert & Kröhnert, 2003). The emergence of dual study programs is a response to this concern. Dual studies transpose the work-​based training principle characteristic for VET to the HE level. As hybrid organizations, they mix selected elements of the traditional VET system and the HE system—​especially in terms of curricula, teaching staff, and funding (Graf, 2018). Dual studies combine training in a firm with courses in a HE institution rather than a vocational school as in traditional apprenticeship training. Thus, the learning environments of the firm and the university are integrated in one curriculum. Dual study programs most often lead to a bachelor’s degree and sometimes additionally an official VET certificate. This transposition of work-​based training to HE is motivated by the obstacles to carrying out direct reforms in the VET system. In the latter, veto players have more power due to the consensus principle and the institutionalized balance of power between unions and employers, on the one hand, and within the employer camps, on the other hand (Di Maio et al., 2019). At the same time, the level of discretion for reinterpretations of the existing regulative framework is low due to the detailed and strongly institutionalized national VET regulation (Emmenegger et al., 2020). As a result, already starting in the 1970s, large industrial German firms—​who represent the key change agents in this case—​set up the first vocational academies to offer dual studies in cooperation with local chambers and in a bottom-​up process. As these were placed in a “niche” on top of VET, key opponents, consisting mainly of small firms and unions, had limited influence on this reform process. Many small firms are less in favor of an academization of VET, partly as they rely on apprentices as a productive workforce already during the training phase (Thelen & Busemeyer, 2012). For unions, traditional VET serves as a key channel to recruit new members and influence education policy, while they play a very small role in the HE sector where dual studies are located (Graf, 2018). Since their creation, dual study programs have massively grown in Germany and are increasingly being taken up

Historical Institutionalism   87 by universities of applied sciences as well (Ertl, 2020), adding up to around 110,000 dual students at the bachelor level alone (BIBB, 2020). Overall, the creation and expansion of dual studies on top of VET represents a layering process through which the work-​based training principle was introduced at the HE level.

The KMK Reform of 2009 The 2009 KMK resolution on “Higher Education Access for Vocationally Qualified Applicants Without a School Entrance Qualification” is a major response to the academization challenge for VET in Germany. It provides extended pathways from VET to HE and enables the expansion of VET graduates’ HE participation (Banscherus et al., 2016). This reform implies that holders of numerous higher VET qualifications have a study authorization equivalent to a general university entrance qualification (Ulbricht, 2012). It also means that, with some exceptions, graduates of initial VET programs—​ after a period of employment—​receive a subject specific HE entrance qualification. That is, they can take up a course of study that corresponds to the subject of the learned profession. Like in the case of dual study programs, from the point of the VET system, this KMK reform represents a rather indirect response to the academization challenge. As mentioned before, the collectively governed VET system is strongly path dependent, granting strong veto powers to its key stakeholders, whose interests are strongly institutionalized, for instance, in national-​, state-​, and local-​level VET governance boards (Emmenegger et al., 2020). The national VET law also implies that there is limited room for discretion within the regulative setting. Thus, while state agents and especially large, export-​oriented large firms (Thelen & Busemeyer, 2012) are interested in adjusting VET to their rising skills demands, this is difficult to achieve by way of a direct reform of VET. Especially small firms are often not very keen to see a significant increase of the general education proportion in VET programs because this can increase the time spent in the school and, hence, decrease the economic utility they can derive from the apprentice during the training period. Due to such opposition, the reform pressure deriving from globalization and academization was playing out at the margins of the VET system in the form of the reconfiguration of the rules of access to HE. These are rules defined by the HE sector, not the VET actors. That is, the KMK as the main state actor in German HE system (Ulbricht, 2012) was in the driver seat and could advance the reform without having to give too much consideration to the interests of private actors in VET. In sum, the changes leading up to the eventual KMK 2009 resolution represent a layering process, not requiring direct changes leading to an academization of the core VET system.

Governance Reforms in VET Alliance for Initial and Further Education and Training Academization and the rise of the knowledge economy bring with them the challenge that there are often either too few firms offering apprenticeships or too few students applying for apprenticeships—​with both predicaments often being related to the

88   Lukas Graf relative rise of attractiveness of HE. This policy problem was one of the reasons why the AfAW was signed in 2014 by the German federal government, businesses, unions, states, and the Federal Employment Agency to provide an additional coordination platform for the various public and private stakeholders in the collective governance of VET. Furthermore, at the German state level, 16 complementary state alliances for apprenticeships (Länderbündnisse) have been created, some of which came into existence even a few years before the launch of the national alliance. Both the national-​and the state-​level alliances aim to increase the attractiveness and quality of initial and further VET for both students and employers through the exchange of best practices and deepened cooperation between all stakeholders, including social partners and civil society organizations (Rohde-​Liebenau & Graf, 2023). The origin of the preceding National Pacts and the subsequent AfAW was the failed attempt by the federal government to introduce a training levy in the early 2000s. This training levy would have implied a direct and transformative change in the governance structure of traditional VET, forcing firms that do not train to pay a special tax to support apprenticeship training (Busemeyer, 2009). However, this reform was blocked by the employers, who feared that this would lead to excessive state intrusion in the decentralized system of governance in VET and, in turn, limit employer influence. The state, as the key change agent in this case, therefore opted for the introduction of an additional governance platform that would be placed on top of the traditional governance structure. The AfAW can therefore be seen as the result of the strong veto powers of employers and the limited room for the state to reform VET within the preexisting governance framework. In a nutshell, the AfAW is a new alliance that brings together a variety of relevant actors to foster collective governance and provide novel policy insights. It represents a layer on top of the traditional VET governance structure in the form of strongly institutionalized governance boards at the national, state, and local levels.

European Alliance for Apprenticeships The EAfA aims to strengthen and revive the historical legacy of VET by improving its prestige and enhancing its European dimension. This involves fostering participation by VET stakeholders at the European, national, and local levels, but especially employers and youth. The European alliance was launched in 2013 by social partners, the European Commission (EC) and the EU Council Presidency, to increase VET quality, supply, and attractiveness in the EU member states through linking relevant stakeholders, VET providers, and think tanks (EC, 2017). It relies on national commitments and stakeholder pledges in its pursuit of enhancing both economic competitiveness and social cohesion. Engaging governments, social partners, and other key stakeholders, it also organizes bench learning and supports collective activities for governments and stakeholders (Graf & Marques, 2022). The origin of the EAfA lies in the 2008 financial crisis and the huge increase in youth unemployment this crisis has caused in many European states. Apprenticeships were then framed as an important tool to combat youth unemployment and improve

Historical Institutionalism   89 the resilience of European youth labor markets (Rohde-​Liebenau & Graf, 2023). However, the EC’s influence on the governance of education and training at the national level is limited. Education is a policy field still mainly under the authority of national governments, which hesitate to give up their regulative powers over skill formation, given its economic and cultural significance for the nation state (Martens et al., 2007). At the same time, it is very difficult for the EC, which represents the key change agent regarding the EAfA, to develop a policy that would be differentiated and sophisticated enough to achieve change through a strategy related to the reinterpretation of the highly distinct national legislation for VET. Hence, the EC, in cooperation with other stakeholders, devised the EAfA as a new layer of VET governance placed at the European level. It is designed to inspire policy innovation in VET without interfering too deeply with national-​level VET governance, “merely” building on national commitments from member states but also pledges from individual actors at the local level (EC, 2017). Overall, the EAfA can be understood as a layer on top of respective national VET governance systems. In the German case, this implies that the EAfA, next to the AfAW, represents another layer on top of the traditional collective governance system.

Conclusion This chapter first offered a review of the literature on HI and education, highlighting how HI relates to the study of globalization in the sector of education. We saw that the HI studies that address globalization mainly treat it in terms of how it plays out in and is translated by different national institutional systems. That is, in HI studies, globalization is typically analyzed in how it is related to distinct national trajectories of institutional development. Next, the chapter presented the theoretical framework of HI with a special focus on the four main modes of gradual institutional change. This was followed by four representative case studies on globalization, academization, and gradual change in VET as the pivotal educational sector studied by HI. Here, the starting point for a sectoral HI perspective was that globalization pressures have promoted the expansion of HE relative to VET. In recent years, this has prompted a range of reforms to strengthen VET in times of ongoing academization. Focusing on the case of such institutional reforms in Germany, the chapter found that due to the presence of strong veto players and limited discretion in the interpretation of rules, layering represents the main pattern of gradual institutional change on which these reforms rely—​implying that new rules are added on top of existing ones, instead of replacing the latter. This enables incremental changes despite the strong degree of path dependence typical for the VET sector. We observed this pattern both in activities related to the reconfiguration of the relationship of VET to HE and the reform of VET governance structures. However, it remains a question for future research to what extent such layering is sufficient to fully adjust VET to the challenges related to increasing globalization and academization or whether, in the long run, the

90   Lukas Graf institutional core of VET will deteriorate, given that much of the institutional innovation is taking place “merely” at its margins, while the institutional core of traditional apprenticeship training remains more or less unchanged. This chapter has identified patterns of change observable in many other countries beyond Germany. For example, new rules reconfiguring the access for VET graduates to HE have been added in other countries with established VET systems, including Austria and Switzerland and beyond (Ebner et al., 2013). Also, one can observe the expansion of hybrid work-​based study programs—​which transpose the VET principle to the HE sector but without implying direct changes to traditional VET systems—​in countries such as France and the United States and as a broad trend in several world regions (Graf et al., 2014). Furthermore, both the AfAW and the EAfA can be seen as illustrations of more general strategies by educational public policymakers to promote new layers of governance in political contexts where their capacity to carry out policies in a top-​down way is limited. Thus, this chapter showed that the HI perspective and the modes of gradual change make it possible to capture how globalization understood as concrete globalization pressures (here: academization and educational expansion) plays out in specific domestic arenas characterized by path dependence (here: the German VET system). A core strength of HI is that it allows us to analyze how such globalization pressures get translated in view of distinct institutional configurations on the ground, often leading to divergent trajectories of change. HI builds on a dynamic understanding of institutions, which are framed not only as constraining but also enabling change agents. Thus, HI is well adapted to studying how globalization pressures get taken up in domestic arenas where endogenous change dynamics play a crucial role. From the HI perspective, the way this unfolds most crucially depends on characteristics of the targeted institution and the political context—​as well as the interrelation of education and training to other socioeconomic spheres. An obvious prospect for future research in the domain of HI, education, and globalization is to further extend the insights from the application of the modes of gradual institutional change to VET to other educational sectors. This could lead to a more general theory of how education may “globalize” in different ways in different sectors. For instance, the HE sector, as the other major sector that prepares students for labor market entry, represents a nice point of comparison. It can be argued that—​in view of globalization pressures—​universities are likely to be more open toward processes of conversion than is typically the case in VET. Due to the relatively high level of autonomy granted to universities, there tend to be fewer veto players (B.2) but more scope for the creative reinterpretation of institutions (A.2)—​at least if the university as the central organizational actor agrees to or even promotes the envisaged changes. In addition, HE is more directly connected to the world polity (Zapp & Ramirez 2019), meaning that there are likely to be fewer opponents to the implementation of related global trends (B.2). In contrast, the VET sector is often more strongly embedded in national labor markets and respective systems of industrial relations. An indication for this is that the Bologna process for the Europeanization of HE more immediately converted European HE systems than

Historical Institutionalism   91 did the Copenhagen process for European VET systems. For instance, the Bologna degree structure was rapidly implemented also in countries that did not have a tradition of dividing study programs into BA and MA degrees (Powell et al., 2012), while the uptake of the Copenhagen process on VET was more ambivalent and selective (Bieber, 2010). In line with this, the present analysis of the EAfA found that it represents layering rather than conversion, not least due to the obstacles to more direct changes in strongly institutionalized national VET systems. Similar patterns unfold in other Europeanization initiatives for VET, such as the European Qualification framework, which was initially intended to strengthen the standing of VET in Europe, but, like the KMK 2009 resolution in Germany, was eventually introduced on top of the national qualification system rather than fully integrated (Graf, 2015). Overall, with its focus on path dependence and change, HI carries great potential when it comes to the analysis of education and globalization in given institutional contexts. While a key strength of sociological institutionalism is the analysis of processes of global isomorphism and convergence, the HI toolbox is especially useful for researchers aiming to trace in detail how globalization pressures play out in national and local contexts, while taking special note of the respective institutional conditions and actor constellations in specific sectors. By focusing on institutional trajectories of change, HI can contribute to our understanding of how present-​day globalization is influencing education in different societal, political, and economic arenas.

Notes 1. HI studies typically focus less on developing a complex theory of globalization but rather on specific pressures—​such as the one to deregulate national markets (Thelen & Wijnbergen, 2003)—​deriving from globalization and affecting specific policy fields. 2. See the conclusion for an extension of the argument to HE. 3. In sociological institutionalism, the structuration of the world polity is seen as key factor for the expansion of HE as a worldwide phenomenon (Zapp & Ramirez, 2019). While sharing the perspective that globalization is associated with educational expansion and academization, this chapter applies an HI approach to uncover the divergent impact of this development on the ground. 4. This is also the reason why in the outlook section of this chapter the discussion is extended to HE, that is, another education sector close to the labor market and economy. Further research is needed to explore the extent to which the HI perspective on globalization presented here is applicable also to education sectors further removed from the economy and economic aspects of globalization. 5. These two characteristics capture key aspects of HI-​oriented analyses that are often interested in agency (here: focus on change agents and veto players) and the respective institutional context (here: level of discretion available in a specific case). In principle, further complexity could be introduced, for instance, by integrating additional factors such as interaction effects with developments in related socioeconomic spheres (Graf, 2018; Mettler & Sorelle, 2018).

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chapter 4

Education i n a P ostlibera l Worl d So ciet y Jared Furuta, John W. Meyer, and Patricia Bromley

The global liberal order of the postwar period celebrated empowered individuals as the central source of progress in all institutional arenas (Meyer, 2010). These models entailed that individuals required education to actively contribute to society; they also projected broader visions of progress as rooted in individual actors in a rationalized world. Education was seen as a panacea for a widened array of problems, and it expanded dramatically around the world. This process intensified in the “neoliberal” period that began in the 1990s, celebrating the centrality of individual and organizational (rather than state) action in all arenas of global society and marketplaces. This worldwide movement followed the fall of communism as an alternative model and led to notions of a global “knowledge society” rooted in education (Lerch et al., 2022a). Thus, in 1950 the average person over 15 years in age in the world had just 3.2 years of schooling. By 1980, this had increased to 5.3 years, and by 2010 individuals were schooled for an average of 7.8 years (Barro & Lee, 2015). The worldwide character of these changes suggests the relevance of neoinstitutional theories that attend to the force of worldwide cultural models in shaping educational change (Meyer, 2010), rather than functional and conflict theories that attribute change to local circumstances or more realist global forces. Neoinstitutional theories emphasize cultural models as underlying educational change; in the postwar liberal period—​and even more the neoliberal period—​these models have been elaborated at the global level and have treated educational expansion as central to both national and global society. In recent years, the global authority of this institutionalized liberal order has weakened, and widespread critical economic, political, and cultural perspectives on it—​from the left, right, and center—​have grown stronger, in a period we see as

Education in a Postliberal World Society    97 fragmented and “postliberal.” Global levels of democracy are in decline, restrictions on civil society are on the rise, and populism is increasingly taking hold around the world (Diamond, 2019). Criticisms of, and sometimes direct attacks on, liberal world culture weaken or at least revise emphases on education that are central to its vision and that in neoinstitutional perspectives drive educational change (Lerch et al., 2022b). Instead, education comes more often to be seen as elitist, or as reflecting arbitrary or Western (or Christian, or American) values. Possible outcomes of these attacks are restrictions on education or educational expansion, or on the long-​term worldwide increase in educational organization all the way to the global level (see Choi et al., Chapter 5, this volume, for a review). Other likely outcomes involve constraints on (or redirection of) education, away from schooled empowerment and toward the celebration of popular autonomy rooted in uncontrolled individualism or embedded in political, religious, familial, or cultural collectives. In this chapter, we review ideas and evidence on recent trends that oppose or provide alternatives to liberal world society. From a neoinstitutional point of view, we see the sweeping modern educational expansion as directly rooted in the cultural frames of this society. And we similarly use this point of view to explore the dimensions on which education is limited or reconstructed with the weakening of global cultural support. We begin by discussing the expansion of education and the empowerment of individual actors that emerged as part of the postwar liberal order, and then depict more recent contestations of this international model. Then, we present two general themes on the effects of these contestations on education: We suggest that the decline in liberal hegemony weakens the centrality of education in models of society, and further that the rise of alternative and oppositional models of society redirects education toward less liberal-​individualist forms. To elaborate on this argument, we then outline the implications of these speculative hypotheses for dependent variables such as school enrollments, educational stratification, curricular content, pedagogy, and educational organization.

Background The period since World War II has been marked by a dominant liberal global culture shaped by rationalized markets and polities, where economic freedoms are emphasized on the political right and political and social freedoms on the left (Ruggie, 1982). The first half of the 20th century had demonstrated the evils of statism and European corporatism, with two world wars, a depression, and extreme violations of human rights (Judt, 2005). As a result, the authority of corporate society over the rights of the individual (seen in free polities and markets) was delegitimated in world discourse and organization (Djelic, 1998). A liberal United States was dominant during the period: It was seen as a formal exemplar, and it also shaped the construction of international institutions

98    Jared Furuta et al. (Ikenberry, 2011). Liberal models were intensified in competition with a conspicuously illiberal communism (Westad, 2017). The imagined alternative to delegitimated collectivisms was a dramatic assertion of the standing of the human individual (Frank & Meyer, 2002). The constructed individual was entitled but also (a) seen as responsible and empowered in a free and rationalized society and (b) theorized as the source of social, political, and economic progress. These claims cut across multiple institutional arenas: The theorized individual could make economic choices in markets, political choices in democracies, cultural choices of religion and language, and social choices in familial and associational life. These choices would, according to liberal faith, add up to collective social goods. A global explosion of formal assertions of individual human rights, empowerment, and responsibilities followed (Elliott, 2007, 2011, 2014; Lauren, 2011; Moyn, 2010; Stacy, 2009). These trends intensified with neoliberalism in the 1980s, emphasizing and globalizing liberal foci on the actors within society rather than the collective states representing society itself (Mudge, 2008; Ruggie, 1998). The end of the Cold War generated a triumphalist assertion of the standing of the individual, now in a stateless global society rather than a bounded national state. These changes supported explosive educational expansion: As a central component of liberal theories of progress, education was essential for both empowering individuals and incorporating and controlling them in rationalized environments. Compulsory education had long been a feature of the nation state model, and now enrollments expanded everywhere (Chapter 1, Lee & Ramirez, this volume). Preschool educational enrollments grew (Wotipka et al., 2017), primary school became universal in “Education for All” global norms and practices (Chabbott, 2003; Meyer, Ramirez, & Soysal, 1992), mass secondary education became common (Barro & Lee, 2015), higher education enrollments grew exponentially in all regions (Schofer & Meyer, 2005), and postschooling lifelong learning became a world ideal (Jakobi, 2011). Beyond national schooling systems, education for the disabled, the refugee, the marginal, the immigrant, or the inhabitant of a conflict society received global support (Lerch & Buckner, 2018). These changes reflected the influence of global models, more than local or national functional forces. They were enacted in liberal countries but also illiberal ones: Rapid educational expansion, for instance, characterized the communist world (although efforts were made in the 1970s to constrain higher educational expansion in preference for more collective control; Baker et al., 2007). The culture of global liberal society was structured in world discourse and organization (Meyer et al., 1997). It was also asserted in professional communications and by international organizations (Boli & Thomas, 1999). The neoliberal culture, with its mythic emphasis on the individual and organizational actor as central in social, political, and economic life, rose in the 1980s. Despite its financial pressures, it carried emphases on education beyond functional justifications (e.g., older “human capital” ideas). During this period, conceptions of socioeconomic progress valued a “knowledge society” (Nowotny et al., 2001; Stehr, 1994); even in peripheral countries, it became an aspirational target. Education was seen as an economically

Education in a Postliberal World Society    99 valuable investment, and the professions produced and legitimated by education were redefined and accounted as economically productive (Schofer et al., 2021).

Postliberalism The dramatic changes reviewed earlier (and in Chapter 1, Ramirez & Lee, this volume) occurred against a range of oppositions. Despite the hegemony of the liberal model and cultural frame, criticisms came in several varieties, all with legitimated interests and actors, and all with discursive cultural support. (a) There were those who saw overeducation as a problem: On the right, it would produce unfulfilled aspirations and destructive status claims; on the left, it would undercut class consciousness and proletarian power; and for the centrists, it was inefficient (e.g., Berg, 1970; Boudon, 1973; Shils, 1971). (b) Others mourned the decline of the traditional family and religion and culture with the rise of female and child autonomy. (c) Still others saw political democracy as mass society filled with demagogues and uncontrolled individualism (Ziblatt, 2017). (d) Many saw rationalized markets and culture as exploiting or destroying local economies and communities (Manza & McCarthy, 2011). These oppositional alternatives have gained strength in the last decade (e.g., Guillen, 2018). Liberal models continued to retain force and, indeed, expand. But liberalisms of all sorts have weakened, relatively, in the face of populist mobilization from below and authoritarian elitism from above. As part of this process, attacks on economic free trade and support for economic forms of nationalism have become pressing political issues (Colantone & Stanig, 2019). Democracy has faced setbacks around the world as it encountered global criticism (Diamond, 2019; Przeworski, 2019). Nongovernmental civil society organizations, conceived as threats to government authority, have faced restrictions in a growing number of countries (Bromley et al., 2020). On one hand, the suppression of individual choice in the name of collectives has gained force as liberal ideologies weaken: Resurgent nationalisms, assertions of religious solidarities, ethnic status claims, and ideas about the putatively natural base of familial, sexual, and gender identities have gained traction in the global society (Bonikowski, 2017; Velasco, 2018). On the other hand, populist libertarianism also celebrates the freedom of individuals to escape the social control of the rationalized society and knowledge system. Several factors explain why these sea changes in global society have taken place. Some are external to the liberal order, such as shifts in power and centrality in world society. Others reflect the failures of the liberal model, and dramatic decoupling between the myths embodied in the model and realities on the ground. We can, thus, list some factors involved: (a) The decline in the world standing of the liberal United States, with its conspicuous domestic and foreign policy failures, has led liberal internationalism to look like neocolonialism (e.g., Mann, 2003). (b) The rising influence of the BRIC countries—​ particularly China—​with aggressively illiberal models has created visible alternatives

100    Jared Furuta et al. (Orban, 2014). (c) The dramatic failure of the 2008 financial crisis produced local disasters, but more importantly delegitimated global capitalism as exploitive (Tooze, 2018). The associated attention to dramatic intranational and international inequalities created legitimation crises even in developed countries. (d) The overreach of liberal models penetrated traditional arenas of social, communal, and family life: The forceful restructuring of these domains created active resistance (Bourguignon, 2015; Mearsheimer, 2019). (e) The extremes of neoliberalism supported libertarianisms that attack the social structures of liberal individualism: These attacks gained standing after the end of the Cold War, weakening justifications for state power (which came to look arbitrary and coercive). (f) And most recently, a viral pandemic now creates attention to the threats of globalization, the failures of global control, and the need to bound, reassert, and defend the local (Kahl & Berengaut, 2020).

Impact on Education The global decline in liberal hegemony and the rise of alternative societal models entails the decline or modification of educational arrangements celebrating notions of empowered individuals in rationalized societies. The education of people as individual “actors” is central to liberal models of society, as these actors are understood to create and recreate society; indeed, the term “education” comes, around the world, to mean the construction of individual persons as global or national citizens and economic actors—​ more than the creation of corporate national, sociocultural, occupational, or class groups (Lerch et al., 2022a). Global and cultural shifts away from liberalism in more recent years have weakened these universalized pictures of education as a Durkheimian religion (Meyer, 2000). We approach the issue with two very general interpretive themes: Theme 1: The decline in liberal hegemony weakens the centrality of education in models of the individual in society. As a result: (a) Commitments to and resources for education decline. (b) Growth rates in enrollments and educational resources tend to decline.



1.1: The effects of the declining centrality of education in models of society are worldwide. 1.2: The effects of the declining centrality of education are concentrated in countries with illiberal structures and linkages. Theme 2: With the decline of liberal models of society, education is redirected away from disciplined individual choice toward the reinforcement of alternatives. Some reassert collective identities (religious, political, economic, sociocultural, or familial). Others may assert uncontrolled individual expression. Thus, some reactions

Education in a Postliberal World Society    101 can be called anti-​liberal, while others enact fragmented versions of liberalism. We use a general term—​postliberal—​to include the variations.



2.1: The effects of postliberal models on the educational celebration of the disciplined liberal individual are worldwide. 2.2: The effects of postliberal models are concentrated in countries with illiberal structures.

These themes are only partly consistent with each other: The matter depends on whether we consider (a) the effects of a global decline in liberal hegemony or (b) the impact of the rise of a variety of postliberal alternatives. Both are plausible implications of the declining relative authority of the liberal order. In the sections that follow, we consider evidence, often speculative or illustrative, for these ideas.

Educational Expansion and Structure Education was a most central social institution in liberal global society (circa 1950 to the 1980s) and even more in the neoliberal period (1990–​2010), as depicted generally in Ramirez and Lee (Chapter 1, this volume) and organizationally in Choi et al. (Chapter 5, this volume). With the rise of oppositions to liberal models, and the rise of alternatives, education may become less central, producing absolute or relative declines in enrollment, lowered political centrality, and structural peripheralization.

Enrollments Theme 1 suggests that in the postliberal period since 2008, the pell-​mell expansion of educational enrollments has slowed or stopped. Education becomes less central as a collective good, and it is increasingly seen as a constraint on individuals, families, and corporate groups. Social incentives for participation thus decline. In the case of tertiary education, detailed analyses have been carried out by Schofer et al. (2022). They show the average annual growth rates in higher educational enrollments for countries for which data are available (1980 to 2015), using data from the World Development Indicators (World Bank, 2019). Growth rates, worldwide, were very high in early postwar period. But in the recent decade, average growth rates for higher education decline (but remain positive). Declines turn out to be especially concentrated in countries with illiberal polities and linkages, as Theme 1.2 would suggest. Available studies also address whether female enrollments are especially constrained in the postliberal period, which carries some elements of the reassertion of traditional familial arrangements, with their special controls over women. The findings of Lerch et al. (2022b) support a version of Theme 2—​growth in enrollment rates of women slowed more than those of men, though expansion continued through the period. Themes 1.1 and 2 suggest that enrollment slowdowns—​particularly those of women—​ might especially characterize countries with illiberal structures and linkages. The

102    Jared Furuta et al. studies cited earlier find supportive evidence for this this by classifying countries on membership in one of several illiberal organizations (see Bromley et al., 2020; Schofer et al., 2022).

Political Support We also expect to find weakening political support for education. In a postliberal institutional environment, negative sentiments about education may increase: From the left, or center, education spending may come to be seen as wasteful, inefficient, or elitist (e.g., Caplan, 2018); from the right, schooling may be denigrated for undercutting primordial collectivities—​or as an imposition on putatively free individuals and families. For example, a speech by US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in October 2020 sharply criticizes the public education system for undermining the family as a sovereign institution: “Let me suggest we could fix education for so many children in America if we . . . embrace the family as the sovereign sphere that it is. A sphere that predates government altogether. It’s been said, after all, that the family is not only an institution; it’s also the foundation for all other institutions” (Strauss, 2020). To explore this issue, we draw on data from the Manifesto Project (Volkens et al., 2020), which tracks political party platforms for many countries over time, coding them on a variety of topics (e.g., discussions of education) and by whether the party is left, center, or right. We focus on the depiction of trends in mentions of limiting state expenditures on education in the party platforms. These trends extend the analyses described in greater detail by Jakobi (2011). They rely on a set of 56 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Central/​Eastern European countries from 1960 to 2018. Each data point at the start of a given decade reflects the percentage of platforms for the entire decade; for example, the data point for 1980 reflects the data from 1980 to 1989. We consider parties sorted out on a left-​right scale, as parties on the left are generally more supportive of education. The results from Figure 4.1 present a clear recent trend: On the left, right, and center, the percentage of political parties that mention limiting state expenditures increases during the recent decade, compared with the neoliberal period of the 1990s (though not earlier periods).

Structure The postwar liberal expansion of education took place with a strong emphasis on equality among individual persons. The idea of distinctive educations for special social groups (by race, class, ethnicity, or gender) was in disrepute as a violation of liberal egalitarian principles. As a result, distinct categories of institutions of postsecondary education declined (Frank & Meyer, 2020), and a linear and universalistic hierarchy of education cycles grew stronger. Similarly, in primary and secondary school, extreme versions of school tracking declined, and simpler models of a universalistic schooling process at early ages grew stronger (Furuta, 2020). These shifts produced a long-​term decline in differentiated systems of vocational education, disconnected as “training” from broad conceptions of education (Benavot, 1983). Even in the Germanic

Education in a Postliberal World Society    103

Percentage of manifestos

.4

.3

.2

.1

0 1940

1960

Year

Percent negative, left

1980

2000 Percent negative, center

Percent negative, right

Figure 4.1  Percentage of political party platforms that mention limiting state expenditures on education, 1960–​2018. (Source: Political Manifesto Project; Volkens et al., 2020)

countries, in which vocational training had developed highly, linkages to the general educational stream moved forward with the development of institutions like the German Gesamtschule. A question for research is whether postliberal educational arrangements bring more differentiated forms of school tracking. Theme 1 suggests they do: Education may be less structured around individuals integrated in an equalitarian public, and more built around differences of individual choice and/​or past or future social roles. This suggests that the overall liberal focus on education for everyone in the public would weaken, in preference for more and earlier specialization. Theme 2.2 suggests that this might occur more strongly in countries with histories of strong statist or corporatist polities: Notions of the nation as an organic community lead in this direction. Systematic data are not yet available, but suggestive examples are common. In Hungary, for example, Viktor Orban advocates education tied to occupational needs and away from producing graduates with “useless knowledge,” as does Recep Erdogan in Turkey (Schofer et al., 2022). In the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson advanced a self-​proclaimed “radical” plan to promote vocational education in September 2020, calling for an end to the “pointless nonsensical gulf that’s been fixed for more than 100 years between the so-​called academic and so-​called practical side of education” (quoted from Stewart, 2020). Further research might find an expansion in separate educational streams for male and female students: Principled coeducation increased sharply in the long liberal period. In the same way, the long-​ term trend against differentiation by religious, ethnic, or national characteristics may be slowed or even reversed under some illiberal conditions (Cakmakli et al., 2017). It seems likely that postliberal regimes might, for example, create exclusions for nonnationals.

104    Jared Furuta et al. Finally, declines in the global model of education for liberal society make education a less central public good (Theme 1), even as it remains a private good in social stratification. Beyond the neoliberal increases in private education (Buckner, 2017) that are often linked to funding arrangements, private alternatives arise as a cultural and ideological matter in oppositions to the values of public education (e.g., in homeschooling, see Chapter 21, Mangez & Tilman, this volume). In all of these cases, private and perhaps idiosyncratic choices of individuals—​and/​or demands of corporate groups—​take preference over liberal notions of nationally and globally responsible individual citizenship. The overall result, we speculate, might be increased educational differentiation around matters of individual or familial taste or group memberships.

Education as Central in Social Stratification The liberal institutional order, with its focus on the rights and capacities of the individual in rationalized society, puts education at the center of the stratification system. Occupational, income, and organizational status have all been constructed as products of educational attainment. Collins’s (1979) title “The Credential Society” captures the idea, as does Dore’s (1976) more explicit formulation of “The Diploma Disease.” Further developments during the neoliberal period created an expanded service sector and led to the construction of the “knowledge society” as a global model: As part of this process, much professional and organizational expansion was explicitly created by, and to be achieved through, education (Schofer et al., 2021). These developments moved away from older conceptions of stratification that (a) valued achievement in economic, political, and social markets, and (b) denigrated the shift to educational conceptions of merit (Kett, 2013). But schooling became increasingly important, and students of social stratification everywhere incorporated educational attainment (of individuals and of roles) as mainstays of hierarchies. While older conceptions of stratification lived on with terms like “socioeconomic status,” actual measurement increasingly employed education as the core property of both individuals and occupations. Correspondingly, students and parents devoted themselves more intensely to strategies for educational success (Baker & LeTendre, 2005). Ideologies of the current postliberal period increasingly emphasize the negative consequences of existing educational arrangements for student overwork, overstress, and suicide (e.g., Pope, 2001), and for the class and status biases in resultant student attainments. For example, a recent article on education in the American Sociological Review begins from a stated assumption that schools are “privilege-​dependent organizations” (Calarco, 2020). Such ideologies attack the credentialist society as elitist and arbitrary, rather than functional (Sandel, 2020). Of course, from a libertarian perspective, compulsory education itself can be seen as a violation of due process rights (Payne, 2014). Much of the criticism involved has a populist flavor, denigrating the putative expertise of the schooled professionals (as with anti-​vaccination movements [Hussain et al., 2018]), or homeschooling advocacy [Chapter 21, Mangez & Tilman, this volume]).

Education in a Postliberal World Society    105 As Theme 1 suggests, efforts are advanced to limit the assignment of social value to educational credentials. As a result, there are waves of attacks on the schools themselves, or on elite schools, or on the power of the professionals legitimated by them. Most of the attacks come from the political right, but left-​wing attacks on educational elitism or selective institutions occur, too (e.g., the obvious inequalities involved in liberal foci on “school choice”). From either side, teachers are criticized for placing their own job security ahead of students’ learning and for resistance to innovation and improvement (Moe, 2011). In higher education, professors are criticized as irrelevant and out of touch, preferring “rigor over relevance” (Desch, 2019). There are claims that the current pandemic exacerbates the failures of education and learning, especially for lower status groups (Allen, 2020). Many of the critical themes here have long been available: Under changed conditions the relevant movements seem to acquire more centrality in national and global discourses. In a postliberal world, educational certificates may lose centrality in the allocation of social positions (e.g., appointments and promotions), in favor of such other measures of qualification as relevant experience, assessments of skill and performance capabilities, qualities of character, or interview performance. For example, in 2018, Google launched a certificate program that is intended to serve as a replacement for a four-​year degree; it will qualify those who complete it for highly paid technology industry jobs, such as data analysis and project management (Google Website, 2020). A management advice column reviewing the trend notes, “more and more employers have signaled that they no longer view them [degrees] as a must-​have—​Apple, IBM, and Google, just to name a few. So, if you’re an employer or hiring manager, ask yourself: Is it time to rewrite our own job descriptions, to eliminate the requirement of a four-​year degree? . . . Remember: Nowadays, it’s all about skills. Not degrees” (Bariso, 2020). As another example, an op-​ ed in the New York Times in December 2020 complains that US Congress members are “credentialed out the wazoo” (Senior, 2020); the editorial postulates that increasing representation from the noneducated could make the political process more effectual. Within educational systems, Theme 2 suggests an expanded focus on the relevance of dimensions of social stratification linked to practice more than an educational core. Professional schools may become more central—​engineering, business and public administration, education, medicine, law, public policy, and social work. They organize education in applied formats appropriate to social needs. Frank and Meyer (2020) refer to them as the “socio-​sciences,” as they organize knowledge around the purposes of human action. Theoretical knowledge may be marginalized in favor of hands-​on training in the real world, with internships and apprenticeships becoming the foci of education (Illich, 1970). Tests administered through hands-​on experience or simulated (or actual) occupational settings may become more frequently used in place of reliance on traditional academic exams, or courses and degrees related directly to practice may expand more rapidly than other areas. Beyond concrete attacks on educational credentialism, rhetorical changes also occur. Educational status and authority depend heavily on culturally constructed respect and deference, and the status-​denigrating discourse of postliberal society has diffuse effects

106    Jared Furuta et al. over and above immediate social-​organizational ones. If the empowered professionals of neoliberal society are reduced to technical specialists and consultants, then their role in broad social change will also be undercut. It seems clear that the exalted role of “think tanks” comes under increased criticism; and nongovernmental organizations are expected to demonstrate concrete impacts. With the decline in the authority of liberal society and the rise of a postliberal libertarian conceptions of freedom outside formal structures, young people themselves might envision more desirable futures outside the educational system.

Curricula In the liberal world, people are to be educationally constructed as empowered and responsible actors across social arenas from economy to family life (Hwang & Colyvas, 2020). To do this, they are to learn about rationalized society and nature, through the natural and social sciences. The educational process also cultivates capabilities for purposive action. Thus, curricula emphasize the capacities of students, who are to be proactive researchers and critical thinkers, and who possess active skills in art, social behavior, and technical analysis. They are to do this, as rational and responsible actors, in a world that is tamed by scientific and social scientific knowledge. Courses in methods proliferate, and student projects become as central as passive learning (Frank & Meyer, 2020). Actorhood and its entitled choices make sense if the wider environment is a rationalized enterprise, and it became an important business of education to do this. Thus, curricula expanded dramatically: Education replicated standard knowledge but also created new scientized fields, from astrobiology to ethnic studies to the micropolitics of sexual behavior (Frank & Meyer, 2020). Mass education replaced traditional history with more rationalized and scientized civics and social studies, adding foreign languages, and incorporating broadened and often participatory and empowered notions of the arts and literature (Benavot et al., 1992). Curricular strategies that emphasize “design thinking” in higher education also became increasingly popular, with the development of global consulting firms. In all areas, globalization proceeded apace, with international flows of students and teachers, international conferences, and consultancies. In a postliberal world less focused on the responsible individual actor in rationalized environments, Theme 1 suggests that these forms of curricular expansion may weaken and be supplemented by highly variable new foci. (a) The liberal individual may be suppressed—​or alternatively freed from responsibilities to a given society and knowledge system. (b) The liberal model of society can return to be an ultimate locus of identity, or a variable focus of political, religious, or cultural entities. (c) Knowledge can have traditional foci on known market arenas for social and economic action, or highly debatable pictures of socially constructed realities. So one can envision a return from emphases on student empowerment to more passive notions of education for competence and conformity: more history and less social

Education in a Postliberal World Society    107 studies, and less abstract science and more practice. On the other hand, one can also imagine the decline of any kind of canon, and a focus on identities and expression detached from the rationalized elements of liberalism. Both responses are likely, and an obvious result would be increases in curricular variation across schools and educational systems. If the educationally disciplining effect of global liberal models declines, fragmented and diverse educational models grow, some supporting expanded individual taste and idiosyncrasy, but others a variety of group identities or distinctive knowledge systems. For instance, the social sciences, which develop abstract and universalistic principles to explain societal processes and empower individuals, are to be marginalized in Turkey and Hungary (Schofer et al., 2022). Similarly, the basic and abstract sciences may decline in relative dominance. Both may decline more generally in the world, to be replaced by the rapidly expanding professional schools, and by new arenas for individual action such as data science (Frank & Meyer, 2020). Curricular attention is on problems to be solved, more than on abstractions. Thus, there are foci on issues of gender and race relations. But women’s studies and ethnic studies, which reflect recognition of an expanding set of individual identities in liberal society, are attacked in multiple places (Lerch et al., 2022b). There are more calls for local relevance, in reaction to foci on national and global orientations: In the extreme, these could lead to decreased international flows of students, teachers, conferences, and collaborations, and increased linkages of the schools to local political and economic contexts, perhaps with local rather than cosmopolitan internships and related foci. But the emphasis on local relevance can also support idiosyncratic curricular variations reflecting individual or familial or subgroup foci. Theme 2 suggests that we should look for assertions of a wide range of postliberal identities and knowledge systems in the curriculum. Some may dramatize individual subjectivity or distinctive cultural frames. Other, and more common, models may increasingly emphasize corporate structures (e.g., family, community, ethnicity, religion) that are seen as having primordial properties; the empowered individual may thus give some ground to a more obedient and knowledgeable one. A first place to look for support for Theme 2 would therefore be to find indicators of resurgent nationalisms, perhaps replacing emphasis on the rationalized state (Guadiano, 2020). Curricular developments in less liberal contexts may increasingly emphasize nationalist history, culture, language, family structures, and religion—​and curricular support for diversity on these dimensions may decline. For instance, civics courses might emphasize conformity more than proaction (Bromley et al., 2011; Lerch et al., 2017). Cultural nationalism would probably produce a greater emphasis on war in school textbooks (Lachmann & Mitchell, 2014). Or there might be growing resistance to liberal cultural assertions of sex education curricula built around ideas of choice and autonomy, as seen in a recent political campaign by Poland’s Law and Justice Party (Davies, 2020). Conservative movements might promote sex only within marriage for the purposes (and duties) of procreation, heterosexuality, and pro-​life stances (Zimmerman, 2016). Such movements are increasingly organized at the global level (Velasco, 2018, 2020). In Romania, for example, the Orthodox Church criticizes sex education and promotes

108    Jared Furuta et al. creationism, in opposition to the work of many nongovernmental organizations (Stan & Turcescu, 2005). But the weakening of the general liberal model might also produce a continuation of less controlled individualistic sexual and gender expression. Again, this leads to the idea that postliberal curricula should show expanded variation across programs and countries. The changes considered here might be best evidenced in countries with illiberal polities. On the other hand, we can also expect changes in the historically liberal polities—​perhaps toward further developments of a less liberal individualism, with more idiosyncratic variation among individuals and groups.

Pedagogy The rise of the empowered individual in the postwar period was characterized by a global shift in pedagogical theory (and sometimes in practice). In textbooks, the development of the student as a participatory person was increasingly emphasized (Bromley et al., 2011), rather than the passive acquirer of top-​down knowledge. Student choice was also empowered in both mass and higher education (Frank & Meyer, 2020; Robinson, 2011): Long chains of required courses and curricular steps tended to disappear, and optional alternatives expanded. Student-​centered forms of education were valued by worldwide and national policies and professionals (Rosenmund, 2006), and rigid systems of evaluation criticized in preference for conceptions of students with multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983). With the rise of alternatives to liberal models of society, Theme 2 suggests we will find cases of increased emphases on the student as subordinated to traditional (and emergent) authority—​but also the legitimation of the free student/​child outside of schooled controls. On one hand, there may be increases in educational discipline across the board—​ emphasizing the collective authority of the teacher, the school, or larger powers (Arum, 2005). For example, perhaps the long-​term decline in policies and practices of corporal punishment is slowed or reversed: In Samoa and Cameroon, there have been recent movements to reinstate legislation that allows teachers to use corporal punishment in schools (Godfrey, 2018; Kindzeka, 2020). In the United States, many states have continually allowed corporal punishment, and several jurisdictions that had previously restricted the practice are now resurrecting it (Human Rights Watch, 2008; Marilisaraccoglobal, 2018; Saxena, 2020). In Brazil, furthermore, Jair Bolsonaro initiated a plan to expand the “civic military” model of schooling by establishing 108 such schools in the country by 2023 (Tokarnia, 2019). As part of the weakening empowerment of students as actors, it is also possible that behavioral requirements will be reasserted, as seen in some schools in India (Bénéï, 2008). School uniforms and stricter dress codes may also make a comeback. As the intrinsic authority of education weakens, traditional arbitrary authority may gain.

Education in a Postliberal World Society    109 On the other hand, postliberal ideologies also expand on the imagined individual of liberal theory, emphasizing free or variable expression against controls of schooled knowledge and responsibility. Programs specialized in terms of religious, cultural, or artistic knowledge frames or technical skills might be more common, whether controlled by individual choice or group norms. These ideas suggest a rise in oppositional relations between teacher and student. Theme 1 suggests increases in student resistance as legitimated by illiberal identities, and by postliberal notions of freedom, autonomy, and empowerment without the rationalized responsibilities of the liberal system. Teacher and school may thus be weaker but more authoritarian in response. Without the framework of the liberal system, a much wider variety of educational—​or marginally educational—​structures may develop, around variations in student and family tastes, or variations in definitions of core knowledge, or variations in social identities. Thus, we could imagine increases in both extremely “progressive” educational models and very conservative ones. Perhaps in liberal national contexts, libertarian models gain strength with the weakening of the authority of the global liberal model: So we might anticipate declines in the power and standardization of compulsory education. In parallel, assertions of national and religious authority, in other contexts, might produce narrowing and rigidity of individual-​ centered education, perhaps in preference for collective power and authority.

Organization and the Universalized Education Regime The postwar liberal society dramatically expanded formal organization in social life and education around the world (Bromley & Meyer, 2015; Choi et al., Chapter 5, this volume). Sleepy universities became “organized actors,” with expanded and differentiated organizational structures (Kruecken & Meier, 2006; Ramirez, 2020), and school systems acquired expanded formal structures. Education became increasingly organized and rationalized at every level—​local units, national ministries, and a huge array of international organizational structures proliferated (Bromley, 2010). Teachers were organized at the international level, and educational credentials became increasingly standardized worldwide. As a result, students and schools could be ranked on worldwide scales (Kijima & Lipscy, 2020). Mass educational systems were evaluated on rationalized measures—​ TIMSS, PISA, or other assessments administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (Baker & LeTendre, 2005; Kamens & McNeely, 2010). Universities were evaluated on globally standardized criteria through the Times Higher Education or Shanghai rankings systems. These changes reflected a cascade of organizational structuration under the global cultural canopy of liberal models. Great international governmental and nongovernmental structures could arise—​UNESCO and the World Bank and USAID on one side, and professional and service organizations on the other. World regions could mobilize,

110    Jared Furuta et al. as with the European Union and the Bologna Process. National ministries of education expanded in mission and structure, as did nongovernmental associations. At local levels, administrative machineries expanded. Theme 1 suggests a weakening of this formalized system, with a weakened global cultural canopy, and thus declines in the centrality and legitimacy of supranational organization. There could also be declines in national-​level organization, as education becomes less central to world-​certified notions of progress. It seems likely that even local educational institutions would have less organizational formalization—​and the world of educational administration might lose its forward motion. For example, there are demands for universities to focus on local relevance rather than global rankings: a recent call for Australian institutions to give up their efforts at “bogus” global rankings and strive for greater local impact (van Onselen, 2020). And at the student level, there are clear American and perhaps global rejections of the once-​dominant national selective tests (e.g., Furuta, 2017). Theme 2 suggests not only the breakdown of a global liberal educational order, with its standards and rankings, but the partial replacement of this order by less universalistic alternatives. Religion may be one alternative basis of organization. One can foresee universities as ranked in terms of their Islamic or Christian proprieties—​recent mobilization against a prestigious university in India has this character (Bhatty & Sundar, 2020). Or one could imagine universities evaluated by their support for gender-​distinct and cisgender curricula, admissions, and pedagogy; or their loyalty to (or functionality for) the nation and national solidarity. Perhaps student and teacher character will be assessed in less academic terms (Karabel, 2005). As an example of an emphasis on more collective identities in educational structuring, education organizations from around the world have participated in international conferences aimed at strengthening family values and control over children, such as the World Congress of Families (Velasco, 2018, 2020). Figure 4.2 lists the country location of education organizations that have participated in the World Congress of Families’ events from 1997 to 2018. These organizations include many religiously affiliated entities and advocates of homeschooling, such as “Take Back Our Schools” (Canada), “Taiwan Homeschool Advocates,” “Homeschooling Catolico” (Mexico), “African Christian Church & Schools” (Kenya), “Islamic Waqf Society for Education and Guidance” (Nigeria), and “Student Christian Movement of India.” The United States is heavily represented (hosting 46 organizations), but other countries are well-​represented, too (such as Russia with 10 organizations, India with 7, and Canada and Kenya with 6 each). An additional 51 countries have fewer than 6 organizations. The number of domestic entities is far higher, but we are focused here on an international system that counters the current liberal world order. Some of these structures can reflect a generalized objection to this order (as with sweeping religious claims), while others may support global doctrines of legitimate and proper localism, as with Robertson’s (1992) notion of “glocalization.” Beyond the participation of these national organizations in an international congress, a handful of explicitly supranational education organizations participate in pro-​family

Education in a Postliberal World Society    111

Figure 4.2  World map of countries with at least one of education organization participating in the World Congress of Families, 1997–​2018. (Source: Adapted from Velasco, 2020)

conferences (Velasco, 2020). In particular, the International Federation for Parents Education; the European Institute for Family Education; the International Association of Science, Ethics, and Integrated Education; and the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education span multiple countries. Structures of this sort, often linked to religious commitments, have long histories. The recent wave of expansion, in some cases extending earlier transnational communities, may indicate the growth of a globally linked system in opposition to parts of liberal educational culture.

Conclusion The success of neoinstitutional theories of education, including their “world society” variants, has been empirical. These theories responded to the failures of functionalist assumptions, which see education as a creature of local economic or political dominance. Institutionalists call attention to global cultural structures: These theories can thus explain isomorphic postwar global expansion. They are also useful for explaining reactions to global liberalism in more recent years. If such reactions were concentrated in national locales with specific economic problems (e.g., local unemployment), more realist and functionalist models might make more sense, but there is little evidence that this is true. Populist criticisms of education arise in economically successful contexts as well or more than in those crushed by the global economy (Schofer et al., 2022). Most functional theories emphasize economic challenges to liberalism, while overlapping realist arguments emphasize political ones (e.g., Colantone & Stanig,

112    Jared Furuta et al. 2019, Mearsheimer, 2019). Neither of these perspectives explains why so much reaction is to the status and authority of educational institutions and the sciences they legitimate, rather than to much more conspicuous inequalities of wealth and power. It seems that in the current context, Harvard University is criticized more than Goldman Sachs. A near parallel to sociological institutionalism’s discussion of world society can be found in systems theory derived from the work of Niklas Luhmann (1982). Comparisons between these lines of argument, some directly related to education, can be found in a recent collection edited by Holzer and his colleagues (2014; see also Chapter 21, Mangaz & Tilman, this volume). In such formulations, the global liberal system can be seen as involving the shift of functional differentiation from the contained nation state level to the global (and stateless) level. This formulation directly parallels neoinstitutional thinking, though (as noted later) the causal structures of the arguments differ. Systems theory arguments would then see the reactions we focus on in this chapter as responses to the stresses for individuals and groups of global differentiation. Neoinstitutional theories see these reactions as reflecting the weakening of the legitimated ontologies of liberal world society, and the rise of stronger alternatives. It is not clear how the predictions produced by systems theories would differ from the institutionalist arguments put forward here. Both lines of thought emphasize variations in the “system-​ness” of global society against, for example, nationalist alternatives. A difference might be in conceptions of the strength of global society: Systems theorists might emphasize the continuing high levels of differentiation at the global level, while neoinstitutionalists would emphasize its lower legitimation and the rise of alternatives. Thus, institutional analyses (and indeed most functional or conflict approaches—​and systems theories as well) see the world expansion of education as occurring under the pressures or opportunities of a liberal global regime. Neoinstitutional ideas stress the individual person as the ontological base of liberal modernity, and the weakness of global entitivity. In these frames, the constructed “interests” of almost all its participants lie with educational expansion: The child and family gain success, the community gains capacity, the nation gains progress, and the world economy gains peace and development. Systems theories see the mobilizations of individualism—​possibly including both populist movements and popular aspects of educational expansion—​as a reaction to the social differentiation of modernity, and to the stresses involved. Thus, these lines of theory employ different and partly opposing causal imageries. Systems theories see differentiation as central, and individualisms as reactions; neoinstitutional theories, by contrast, see Western and now world individualism as driving much nominally functional differentiation. In any case, the liberal world is a cultural construction at odds with much of reality—​extreme economic and political inequalities at individual, societal, and global levels, and extreme variations in a wide range of cultural and religious matters. It is easy to see why and how the constructed world of liberal/​neoliberal society can come under attack. At present, however, there is no consolidated

Education in a Postliberal World Society    113 alternative global model similar in strength to the fascist and communist challenges to of the 20th century. But the internal tensions of the liberal order contribute to its limitations as a global model (Friedland & Alford, 1991), and alternative visions of emerge in transnational formulations (Mearsheimer, 2019). Going forward, it is difficult to imagine that education in its liberal form will be as central as in the earlier postwar period.

Acknowledgments Work on this chapter was aided by comments from David Frank, Julia Lerch, Evan Schofer, Simona Szakacs-​Behling, Kris Velasco, the editors of this Handbook, and participants in Stanford’s Comparative Workshop, including Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Francisco Ramirez, and Mitchell Stevens. Funding was provided by the National Research Foundation (Korea): NRF-​2017S1A3A2067636.

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116    Jared Furuta et al. Kindzeka, M. E. (2020). Cameroon teachers protest, seek reinstatement of corporal punishment amid rising violence. VOA News. https://​www.voan​ews.com/​afr​ica/​camer​oon-​teach​ ers-​prot​est-​seek-​reinst​atem​ent-​corpo​ral-​pun​ishm​ent-​amid-​ris​ing-​viole​nce Krucken, G., & Meier, F. (2006). Turning the university into an organizational actor. In G. Drori, J. Meyer, & H. Hwang (Eds.), Globalization and organization: World society and organizational change (pp. 241–​257). Oxford University Press. Lachmann, R., & Mitchell, L. (2014). The changing face of war in textbooks: Depictions of World War II and Vietnam, 1970–​2009. Sociology of Education, 87(3), 188–​203. Lauren, P. G. (2011). The evolution of human rights: Visions seen. University of Pennsylvania Press. Lerch, J., Bromley, P., & Meyer, J. W. (2022a). The expansive educational consequences of global neoliberalism. International Journal of Sociology, 52(2), 97–​127. Lerch, J., Bromley, P., Ramirez, F., & Meyer, J. (2017). The rise of individual agency in conceptions of society: Textbooks worldwide, 1950–​ 2011. International Sociology, 32(1), 38–​60. Lerch, J. C., & Buckner, E. (2018). From education for peace to education in conflict: Changes in UNESCO discourse, 1945–​2015. Globalisation, Societies, and Education, 16(1), 27–​48. Lerch, J. C., Schofer, E., Frank, D. J., Longhofer, W., Ramirez, F. O., Wotipka, C. M., & Velasco, K. (2022b). Women’s participation in the post-​liberal era. International Sociology, 37(3), 305–​329. Luhmann, N. (1982). The world society as a social system. International Journal of General Systems, 8(3), 131–​138. Mann, M. (2003). Incoherent empire. Verso. Manza, J., & McCarthy, M. (2011). The neo-​Marxist legacy in American sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 155–​183. Marilisaraccoglobal. (2018). U.S. school reinstates corporal punishment with paddling. Global News Canada. https://​glo​baln​ews.ca/​news/​4441​097/​sch​ool-​paddl​ing-​geor​gia/​ Mearsheimer, J. (2019). Bound to fail: The rise and fall of the liberal international order. International Security, 43(4), 7–​50. Meyer, J. (2000). Reflections on education as transcendence. In L. Cuban & D. Shipps (Eds.), Reconstructing the common good in education (pp. 206–​222). Stanford University Press. Meyer, J. (2010). World society, institutional theories, and the actor. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 1–​20. Meyer, J., Boli, J., Thomas, G., & Ramirez, F. (1997). World society and the nation-​state. American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 144–​181. Meyer, J., Ramirez, F., & Soysal, Y. (1992). World expansion of mass education, 1870–​1980. Sociology of Education, 65(2), 128–​149. Moe, T. M. (2011). Special interest: Teachers unions and America’s public schools. Brookings Institution Press. Moyn, S. (2010). The last utopia: Human rights in history. Harvard University Press. Mudge, S. (2008). What is neo-​liberalism? Socio-​economic Review, 6(4), 703–​731. Nowotny, H., Gibbons, M., & Scott, P. (2001). Rethinking science: Knowledge and the public in an age of uncertainty. Polity Press. Orban, V. (2014). Full text of Viktor Orban’s speech at Baile Tusnad. The Budapest Beacon, July 26, 2014. https://​bud​apes​tbea​con.com/​full-​text-​of-​vik​tor-​orb​ans-​spe​ech-​at-​baile-​tus​nad-​ tusn​adfu​rdo-​of-​26-​july-​2014/​

Education in a Postliberal World Society    117 Payne, D. (2014). Abolish compulsory education. The Federalist. https://​thefed​eral​ist.com/​ 2014/​02/​04/​abol​ish-​com​puls​ory-​educat​ion/​ Pope, D. (2001). “Doing school”: How we are creating a generation of stressed out, materialistic, and miseducated students. Yale University Press. Przeworski, A. (2019). Crises of democracy. Cambridge University Press. Ramirez, F. (2020). The socially embedded American university: Intensification and globalization. In L Engwall (Ed.), Missions of universities (pp. 131–​161). Springer. Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture. Sage. Robinson, K. (2011). The rise of choice in the U.S. university and college: 1910–​2005. Sociological Forum, 26(3), 601–​622. Rosenmund, M. (2006). The current discourse on curriculum change: A comprehensive analysis of national reports on education. In A. Benavot & C. Braslavsky (Eds.), School knowledge in comparative and historical perspective (pp. 173–​194). Springer. Ruggie, J. G. (1982). International regimes, transactions, and change: Embedded liberalism in the post-​war economic order. International Organization, 36(2), 379–​415. Ruggie, J. G. (1998). Globalization and the embedded liberalism compromise: The end of an era? In W. Streeck (Ed.), Internationale Wirtschaft, Nationale Demokratie (pp. 79–​97). Campus Verlag. Sandel, M. (2020). The tyranny of merit. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Saxena, V. (2020). Texas school district is bringing back corporal punishment—​Legal in 19 states. BPR Business & Politics. https://​www.bizpa​crev​iew.com/​2020/​03/​08/​texas-​sch​ool-​ distr​ict-​is-​bring​ing-​back-​corpo​ral-​pun​ishm​ent-​legal-​in-​19-​sta​tes-​895​185 Schofer, E., Lerch, J., & Meyer, J. W. (2022). Illiberal reactions to the university in the 21st century. Minerva, 60(4), 508–​534. Schofer, E., & Meyer, J. (2005). The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review, 70(6), 898–​920. Schofer, E., Ramirez, F. O., & Meyer, J. W. (2021). The societal consequences of higher education: 1960–​2012. Sociology of Education, 94(1), 1–​19. Senior, J. (2020). 95 percent of representatives have a degree. Look where that’s got us. New York Times. https://​www.nyti​mes.com/​2020/​12/​21/​opin​ion/​poli​tici​ans-​coll​ege-​degr​ees.html Shils, E. (1971). No salvation outside higher education. Minerva, 6, 313–​321. Stacy, H. (2009). Human rights for the 21st century: Sovereignty, civil society, culture. Stanford University Press. Stan, L., & Turcescu, L. (2005). Religious education in Romania. Communist and Post-​ Communist Studies, 38(3), 381–​401. Stehr, N. (1994). Knowledge societies. Sage. Stewart, H. (2020). Boris Johnson announces “radical” plan to boost vocational training. https://​www.theg​uard​ian.com/​polit​ics/​2020/​sep/​29/​boris-​john​son-​announ​ces-​radi​cal-​ plan-​to-​boost-​voc​atio​nal-​train​ing Strauss, V. (2020). In a steely anti-​government polemic, Betsy DeVos says America’s public schools are designed to replace home and family. Washington Post, October 21, 2020. https://​ www.was​hing​tonp​ost.com/​educat​ion/​2020/​10/​21/​ste​ely-​anti-​gov​ernm​ent-​pole​mic-​betsy-​ devos-​says-​ameri​cas-​pub​lic-​scho​ols-​are-​desig​ned-​repl​ace-​home-​fam​ily/​ Tokarnia, M. (2019). Brazil to have 108 civic-​ military schools implemented by 2023. AgenciaBrasil. https://​agenci​abra​sil.ebc.com.br/​en/​educa​cao/​noti​cia/​2019-​07/​bra​zil-​have-​ 108-​civic-​milit​ary-​scho​ols-​impl​emen​ted-​2023

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chapter 5

World Cult u re , Education, a nd Organiz at i on Minju Choi, Hannah K. D’Apice, Nadine Ann Skinner, and Patricia Bromley 1

Introduction An “organizational revolution” has reshaped societies, polities, and economies around the world—​including producing fundamental changes to education. At the turn of the 20th century, there were relatively few formal organizations in most countries; instead, religious institutions and government were the dominant social structures. But in the contemporary world it is hard to imagine an arena of life, including education, that is organization-​free, and their reach extends into the most remote parts of the globe. Today, nonprofit organizations do everything from providing sex education programs in the Middle East to providing digital health education about COVID-​19 to promoting higher education in the Arctic. Massive global firms produce curricular materials. And small education start-​ups are founded at a rapid rate. Together, these diverse organizations make up a vibrant institutional field across the globe (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Although what counts as an “education organization” today is extremely varied, what unites these entities is their cultural construction as autonomous social actors (Bromley & Meyer, 2015; King et al., 2010). The global expansion of organizational actorhood profoundly alters education. Indeed, the most dramatic worldwide changes in education, such as privatization, the rise of testing, and the emergence of multi-​stakeholder governance regimes that run from local to global levels, are best understood as part of an organizational transformation of schooling and society. Furthermore, for better or worse, education plays a role in deepening the reach of organizations into contemporary life.

120    Minju Choi et al. We call attention to widespread organizational changes in education, which occur in countries with highly varied contexts (rich and poor, autocracy and democracy), at multiple levels of education (from local to global, from early childhood to higher education), and across sectors (including public and private). Drawing on a neoinstitutional lens in organization theory, we argue that a globalizing world culture, characterized by the valorization of the intertwined principles of scientized rationalization and individual empowerment, is at the root of these changes (Meyer et al., 1997; Meyer, 2010). First, empirical research has documented that the hegemonic rise of a world culture has spurred the expansion of education at all levels (Meyer et al., 1992; Ramirez & Boli, 1987; Schofer & Meyer, 2005; Wotipka et al., 2017). Second, a related set of studies has shown that world culture also generates the global expansion of organizational actors (Drori et al., 2006). Bringing these two lines of research together, we consider how the expansion and growing dominance of organization fundamentally transforms the structure and content of education. Moreover, the expanded education systems serve to normalize and legitimate the dominance of organizations throughout contemporary society. We thus note a recursive relationship between the expansion of education and organization. In what follows we provide background on the rise of world culture that emerged after World War II, which emphasized both progress (e.g., economic development, improved health) and justice (e.g., individual human rights, civic and political rights, equality) (Meyer et al., 1997). Our focus is on its core principles of scientized rationalization and individual empowerment. We briefly review the research documenting how world culture generates both organizational and educational expansion. Next, we shift to our core argument; namely, that the structure and content of education around the world has undergone an organizational transformation driven by the expansion of liberal world culture. We define liberal world culture as a system that enshrines the sacredness of individual choice, actorhood, and ideals of progress, most substantially reflected in principles of free markets and democracy. The foundations of liberal world culture were amplified during the neoliberal era. In the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent dominance of American authority changed the world order that emerged after World War II. With the end of the Cold War, boundaries between nation states no longer limited the spread of liberal models of society. Importantly, the neoliberal era is not just about profit or capitalism; it is about the globalization of a core cultural belief in the value of individual choice and action that crosses sectors, including celebrations of civil society, democracy, and human rights of all kinds. We understand the rise of both organizational and educational society as closely linked to the dominance of a liberal and neoliberal cultural system. To spur future research, we provide empirical illustrations of our arguments that could be valuably extended to test the assertions in this chapter. In a final discussion we consider the implications of the organizational transformation of education. In contrast to functional views that celebrate the rise of organizations in education as effective and efficient, and in contrast to critical views that point to the

World Culture, Education, and Organization    121 evils of privatization, our cultural arguments suggest that organizational changes in education are neither inherently positive nor negative. We can observe both harmful and beneficial consequences, as well as a great deal of decoupling between discourse and practice. A key message of our arguments is that as culture changes, education is again likely to be fundamentally transformed: The rise of populism, nationalism, and other illiberal trends worldwide suggests such a shift may already be underway and is expected to have substantial consequences for contemporary education (see Furuta et al., Chapter 4, this volume, for more discussion).

Background The 20th century witnessed the rise and globalization of a liberal and neoliberal world culture built on the principles of scientific rationalization and individual empowerment (see Meyer et al., 1997, for the canonical statement). These cultural principles underpin the core institutions of modernity, including education systems and formal organizations. Modern liberal culture and its institutions emerged earlier in Western countries, especially following the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution (see Lechner & Boli, 2005, for a detailed historical account). But World War II was a turning point that legitimated and globalized the liberal cultural model, accelerating its diffusion to diverse countries (Drori et al., 2003; Thomas et al., 1987).2 Ultranationalist notions were denounced as contributing to the atrocities of war, weakening state authority relative to the standing of science and the individual, and international cooperation gained status. During the postwar period of American dominance, scientific rationalization and individual empowerment became hegemonic principles at the world level. The collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War accelerated the globalization process further. Naturally, cross-​sectional variation between countries remains with very different cultural, economic, and political contexts, but in the period since World War II most took on more features of liberal and neoliberal world culture than in prior eras. The intertwined cultural principles of scientific rationalization and individual empowerment are complex, and a full discussion goes beyond our purposes here (see Meyer, 2010, for a more detailed discussion). Briefly, scientific rationalization is defined as systematically developed knowledge by trained experts, who follow the standards of their professions (Drori et al., 2003; Weber, 1978). Scientific rationality is tied to individual empowerment because it relies on and valorizes the knowledge gained by those individuals who are empowered to practice professional expertise, in “contrast to alternative bases of authority such as charisma, tradition, or tacit and implicit forms of knowledge” (Bromley & Meyer, 2017, p. 948). Progress, rather than salvation, takes center stage; and scientists and professionals are the new priests. Over time, more and more people can gain the skills and knowledge needed. Individual empowerment goes beyond just taming knowledge, however; it is linked to the belief in justice: Individuals

122    Minju Choi et al. have inalienable rights. These rights specify basic equality on many fronts and allow individuals to become empowered through their agency and opportunity to gain expertise (in principle, not always in practice). Individual empowerment is thus composed of the ability to make purposeful choices, and equality in an opportunity structure (Bromley, 2016). Therefore, any disenfranchisement of an individual’s human rights is in conflict with the ideals of individualism and rationality. Scientific rationality demands that the critically rational individual have autonomy of reason and a right of free inquiry, ensuring the connection between the two concepts (Durkheim, 1961, 1973; Elliott, 2007). The rise of world culture has expanded education and transformed the ways in which we understand and carry out education (see Lee & Ramirez, Chapter 1, this volume, for a more detailed account). Systems of mass schooling have expanded to the point where they are ubiquitous, but they are also marked by growing similarities in content, structure, and curricula that conform to the liberal cultural model (Meyer et al., 1992; Ramirez & Boli, 1987). Higher education also expands, especially in countries more linked to world culture (Schofer & Meyer, 2005). The goal is now “Education for All,” establishing education as a universal human right (Chabbott, 2003). Curricular content has also expanded and transformed to include new topics and degrees in fields such as women’s studies, Black studies, and Indigenous studies (Ramirez et al., 2009; Rojas, 2010; Wotipka & Ramirez, 2008). Under the cultural tenets of individual empowerment and scientific rationalization, organizations have also undergone a transformation that distinguishes them from traditional collectivities. Modern organizations are different from older communal associations in that they assume a greater sense of “actorhood” in which they are attributed with expanded sets of rights and responsibilities (Drori et al., 2006).3 As a cultural model, organizational actors are expected to display autonomy (largely linked to the cultural principle of empowerment) and purposiveness (largely linked to the principle of scientific rationalization), and they have a responsibility to recognize the autonomy and purposiveness of other actors. Older collectives drew their authority from sources such as the state or the church and did not operate within a cultural framework of an expanded sense of rights and autonomy (King et al., 2010; Lamoreaux & Wallis, 2017). How modern organizations form their identity is debated among scholars, with some emphasizing fundamental attributes or static roles of the organizations and others focusing more on the socially constructed and dynamic characteristic of organizational identity (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Glynn, 2008). Our argument here understands modern organizations themselves as representative of a new form of authority in society. Through their “actorhood,” organizations are no longer simple congregations of individuals or the tool of a sovereign but are unique entities that take purposeful and legitimate actions to carry out their goals and responsibilities (Brunsson & Sahlin-​ Andersson, 2000). In practice, actual entities may vary greatly from this ideal type; that is, their goals and actions are highly decoupled (Bromley & Powell, 2012; Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Rooted in a rapidly globalizing liberal culture, the type, number, size, purposes, and status of organizations have multiplied, and increasingly organizations are

World Culture, Education, and Organization    123 constructed as independent social actors (Bromley & Sharkey, 2017; Coleman, 1982; Drori et al., 2006). For instance, the number of multinational corporate organizations increased from 3,000 in 1900 to more than 63,000 by the early 2000s (Bromley & Meyer, 2015). The growth of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in a variety of fields has also far outpaced either population or economic growth in countries worldwide (Bromley & Meyer, 2017): The number of INGOs has grown from approximately 0.1 organization per million people in 1909 to 8 organizations per million people in 2009 (Bromley, 2020; see also Boli & Thomas, 1999). And since the 1990s, the fastest growth for domestic associations is occurring in developing countries (Schofer & Longhofer, 2011). These organizations are not only increasing in types, numbers, and sizes, but also as rationalized actors drawing on scientized practices to legitimate their goals and purposes. For example, many contemporary international organizations rely on their scientific knowledge as the basis for their expertise and the reasoning for their actions (Zapp, 2020), which gives them their own expanded purpose and status. Overall, existing literature shows that the rise of scientific rationalization and individual empowerment drives the expansion of education and organization. We elaborate on the interconnectedness of these expansions. That is, the structure and content of education systems are reshaped by the rise of organizations in society. In turn, education normalizes and legitimates the dominance of organizations in contemporary society. Figure 5.1 outlines our conceptualization of the relationship between world culture, education, and organization. Given this volume’s focus on education, we mainly examine the ways in which schooling is changed, though we provide some additional reflections on how education shapes organization.

Worldwide diffusion of individual empowerment and scientific rationalization

Structure

Content

Education expansion

Organizational expansion Normalization

Legitimization

Figure 5.1  Relationship among world culture, education, and organization.

124    Minju Choi et al.

Arguments Proposition 1. Transformed Structure: Expansion of Organizational Actors in Education We argue that the worldwide rise of scientific rationalization and individual empowerment provides a globalized cultural framework that promotes the expansion of organizational actors as central units in education systems. Government, with its traditional features of bureaucratic hierarchy and centralized control, persists as a main provider of education, but private education organizations, characterized by autonomy and rationalized purposiveness, expand in number and status. At the same time, even government agencies are transformed to become more like contemporary organizational actors (Brunsson & Sahlin-​Andersson, 2000). Furthermore, organizing fragments built on the same world cultural principles exist even outside the boundaries of any given entity (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011, 2019). There is a proliferation of organizations and organizing in all kinds of roles in education, as well as changes to the internal structures of education institutions as they take on the trappings of contemporary organized actors. Empirical data as well as extant literature suggest that the organizational transformation of education occurs in several ways. First, the education landscape becomes increasingly littered with organizations of all types, as for-​profit, nonprofit, and nongovernmental organizational actors increase in number at local and global levels. Second, existing education activities and providers become more organizational in character, acquiring rationalized features of organizational actorhood (i.e., autonomy, purposiveness, and responsibility to recognize other actors). Across these dimensions of change, we expect greater shifts in contexts more closely linked to world culture. Stated formally, we propose the following changes to the structure of education systems and provide some illustrative empirical material: 1. Increased Numbers. The number of education organizations will expand over time in both domestic and international contexts, beginning in the liberal period of post–​World War II and accelerating under the neoliberal world society starting in the 1990s. This will occur most in contexts tied more closely to liberal world culture (e.g., over time with cultural globalization or in countries most linked to global cultural shifts), beyond the material interests of elites and beyond demonstrable function.4 2. Increased Actorhood. Education will be characterized by increasing displays of organizational actorhood over time in both domestic and international contexts, beginning in the liberal period of post–​World War II, and accelerating under neoliberal world society starting in the 1990s. This will occur in contexts tied more closely to liberal world culture (e.g., over time with cultural globalization or in

World Culture, Education, and Organization    125 countries most linked to global cultural shifts), beyond the material interests of elites and beyond demonstrable function.

Increased Numbers Our arguments predict growing numbers of education organizations of all sorts (e.g., for-​profit and nonprofit), across a wide array of levels (e.g., local and global, early childhood through higher education). Prior research further suggests this will occur in a range of settings, representing both elite and grassroots interests, and beyond functional needs, including expressive and instrumental entities (Bromley et al., 2018). Given data availability, empirical trends in the United States serve as a useful starting point, though our arguments and preliminary data can be extended globally. In the case of the United States, the elaboration of the organizational environment for education occurs at both the basic and higher education levels. We use data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), published by the Urban Institute (2015), to document these trends. The NCCS offers the most comprehensive and up-​ to-​date source of information on nonprofit member organizations in the United States based on tax filings with the Internal Revenue Service, covering charities, foundations, and other types of tax-​exempt education nongovernmental organizations. Note that, in the United States, these types of organizations frequently receive a mixture of both private and public funding; hence funding source has very little to do with governance (Davies, 2013; Willetts, 2002). Figure 5.2 illustrates the total number of education

100000

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20000

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Figure 5.2 Number of education nongovernmental organizations founded in the United States, 1990–​2010. (Source: Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics, 2015)

126    Minju Choi et al. 3000

Number of nonprofits

2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1990

1992

1994 1996

1998 2000 2002 Year

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Figure 5.3 Number of higher education nongovernmental organizations founded in the United States, 1990–​2010. (Source: Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics, 2015)

organizations between 1990 and 2010, which has more than doubled, while Figure 5.3 illustrates increasing trends for education organizations specific to higher education. Cross-​national data—​and data going back in time prior to the 1990s—​are far less complete, but even partial data suggest an increase in the number of domestic education organizations founded throughout the world. The best data we could find come from the Gale Group’s Associations Unlimited database, which contains information on more than 30,000 domestic civil society organizations (CSOs) around the world (Gale Group Website, 2017).5 The database provides keywords to identify groups with an education focus, and we exclude organizations that were branches of INGOs. Bromley et al. (2018) used this data to analyze the global expansion of domestic education organizations over the period from 1990 to 2018, finding the number of organizations increasing beyond functional explanations such as country wealth: Countries more linked to world culture have a particular increase, net of other factors. Furthermore, expansion occurs not only in North America and Western Europe but across non-​Western regions such as sub-​ Saharan Africa, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Figures 5.4 and 5.5 illustrate the change in numbers of domestic education associations reported in countries around the world in 1970 and 2018, respectively. The figures show that diverse sets of countries are generating their own domestic education organizations, as opposed to this activity being solely located in the West. Taken together, these trends suggest that the organizational environment in education within countries around the world became more elaborate over time, with greater numbers of organizations participating in education services and provision. Importantly, nongovernmental organizations do not necessarily replace the state in terms of education provision, but rather may be engaged by the state itself. Sending and Neumann

World Culture, Education, and Organization    127

N. Education Associations 1–20 21–100 100+

Figure 5.4  Number of domestic education associations by country, 1970. (Source: Data adapted from Bromley et al., 2018)

N. Education Associations 1–20 21–100 100+

Figure 5.5  Number of domestic education associations by country, 2018. (Source: Data adapted from Bromley et al., 2018)

(2006) describe this relationship between the state and non-​state actors as “an expression of a changing logic or rationality of government” (p. 652), by which the state may fund organizations as complementary actors in the process of governance, as opposed to competing with them in an imagined zero-​sum game. This perspective is consistent with studies on public administration which find that government agencies increasingly engage multiple interdependent actors in the delivery of public services (Osborne, 2010, as cited in Bromley & Meyer, 2017). A cross-​national study of domestic CSOs also finds that the domestic CSO sector is highly associated with an expanded state and an expanded education system (Bromley, et al., 2018). Such expansion also likely occurs at the global level. To document global trends, we draw on data from the Yearbook of International Organizations (YBIO), published by the Union of International Associations, which includes detailed information on over

128    Minju Choi et al. 73,000 international organizations across 300 countries and territories (Yearbook of International Organizations, 2020). Figure 5.6 leverages the YBIO data to chart trends in the foundings of international nongovernmental education organizations worldwide. This figure reveals an acceleration of education INGO foundings through the 1990s. While the rates of foundings may decrease thereafter, the cumulative number of INGOs continues to increase. Some suggest this decline in the founding rate indicates that the landscape reaches a saturation of organizations (Bush & Hadden 2019), but a detailed analysis of the YBIO data collection procedures suggests an extended data collection lag of over a decade may account for some or all of the apparent drop (Boli & Thomas 1997). An implication of this transformation is that globally, authority is increasingly diffused such that it is no longer concentrated solely within government. Sassen (1996, 2003) asserts that governance is diffused internationally among international governmental organizations, beyond the provenance of the nation state. Simultaneously, the logic of government shifts to create space for organizations as complementary actors in governance (Sending & Neumann, 2006), and organizations themselves proliferate. In addition to these trends, we argue that authority becomes shared with the private sector, in the form of both nonprofit and for-​profit organizations. These shifts from the national to the international, and from the public to the private, are both part of the increasing organizational elaboration of governance. The trends we observe in Figure 5.6 begin with the liberal regimes of the immediate post–​World War II period, but reach their peak in acceleration during the neoliberal period of the 1990s. Under the neoliberal rhetoric of post-​1990s world culture, private actors are seen as more flexible in their ability to effectively provide both academic and nonacademic services, including food provision and infrastructure. In practice, evidence of effectiveness is mixed, and features of privatization or quasi-​market regulations, such as increased school autonomy or school competition for student recruitment, may even exacerbate inequality (Dumay & Dupriez, 2014; Patrinos et al., 300

200

100

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00

-19

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s

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19

s s s s s s s s s 0s 20 1930 40 950 1960 1970 00 80 1990 191 19 19 1 20 19 Decade

Figure 5.6 Number of international nongovernmental education organizations founded cross-​nationally by decade, 1886–​2009. (Source: Yearbook of International Organizations, 2020)

World Culture, Education, and Organization    129

Percentage of total enrollments

25

20

15

10

5 1990

1995

2000 Year

Private enrollments, primary

2005

2010

Private enrollments, secondary

Figure 5.7  Global average percentages in private enrollment by level of schooling, 1987–​2010. (Source: World Bank, 2020)

2009). This decoupling of the dominant theory of progress from known outcomes, combined with its wide embrace by an array of actors, indicates deep beliefs in such cultural underpinnings. The expanded role of private actors in education can be seen in both increased enrollments in private schools cross-​nationally, as well as increases in the number of private organizations in higher education. Figure 5.7 visualizes data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, accessed via the World Bank, which show that the percentage of private school enrollment as a percentage of primary and secondary schooling has increased over time. Based on available data, private primary school enrollments have increased from just under 9% in 1990 to 14.9% by 2010, whereas secondary school enrollments have increased from about 19.2% in 1998 to 22.7% in 2010. Meanwhile, at the tertiary level, the number of private higher education institutions has increased over time to the point of exceeding those of public institutions globally. Replicating analyses from Buckner (2017) with data from Pearce (2016), Figure 5.8 outlines the cumulative number of private versus public universities between 1800 and 2013. Though the number of private universities trails that of public universities through the mid-​20th century, this trend is reversed around the late 1980s, when private university numbers begin to increase dramatically. These increases are not merely occurring in countries with existing private or semi-​ private education markets. Rather, the number of different countries with private higher education institutions is increasing as well. The expansion can even be seen in countries where private higher education was previously considered controversial and contested (Buckner, 2017). The percentage of countries with private higher education institutions

130    Minju Choi et al.

Cumulative number of HEIs

8000

6000

4000

2000

0 1800

1850

1900 Year Private HEIs

1950

2000

Public HEIs

Figure 5.8  Cumulative higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide, by sector. (Source: Data from Pearce, 2016; adapted from Buckner, 2017)

increased from around 55% in 1960 to over 80% in the 2000s, with this rate of increase exceeding that of countries with public higher education institutions in the same period (Buckner, 2017). Many studies focus on the privatization of education, and certainly the evidence of this is strong. But mainstream explanations tend to focus on the political economy of the neoliberal era (Ball, 2012; Verger, 2016) and overlook that these trends are in part cultural. We see increasing privatization and organizational elaboration as distinct but related phenomena. All aspects of society become increasingly organizationally elaborated under the rise of scientific rationalization and individual empowerment (Bromley & Meyer, 2017), and increasing privatization is, in part, motivated by these trends. Taking a broader cultural lens which focuses on the organizational transformation of society in general, we can see that there is a massive growth in nonprofit organizing beyond private business interests. Moreover, this organizing represents grassroots interests and growth in all sorts of organizations beyond those involved in the privatization of service provision. At the global level there has been an explosion of transnational activism and prosocial activity around the goal of “Education for All,” leading to the creation of a dense network of organizations (Mundy, 2007; Tikly, 2017). Moreover, the organizational expansion in education is characterized by a general blurring of the lines between for-​profit and nonprofit sectors, which is hard to account for using views that pit private and public goals against one another (Dees & Anderson, 2003). “Hybrid” organizations, social enterprises, and social entrepreneurship are increasingly common (Mair, 2020). Social institutions that previously had distinct structures, such as charities and schools, begin to act as organizational actors, gaining similar structures and features (Bromley & Meyer, 2017). Instead of viewing themselves

World Culture, Education, and Organization    131 as unique entities, with distinct contexts and needs, modern organizational actors consider themselves as “organizations, having typical organizational problems and being in need for efficient organizational solutions” (Krücken & Meier, 2006, p. 242).

Increasing Actorhood In addition to an increase in the density of education organizations, the nature of education as an institution changes to reflect the principles of organizational actorhood. Extant literature on the transformation of universities offers an illustration of these trends. Krücken and Meier (2006) argue that four features in particular document the transformation of universities into organizational actors: the creation of accountability systems; adoption of organizationally defined (as opposed to imposed) goals; the elaboration and expansion of formal organizational structures centered on these goals; and finally, the rise of managerialism among professors, who are increasingly involved in rationalized administrative tasks beyond teaching and research. Universities also establish various offices of development, diversity, legal affairs, and so on, as formalized managerial structures that institutionalize and rationalize activities which may have previously been informal (Furuta & Ramirez, 2019; Kwak et al., 2019; Skinner & Ramirez, 2019). The emergence of such offices occurs, in part, in response to the rise of empowered individuals in colleges and universities (Furuta & Ramirez, 2019). More broadly, there is a growing cultural celebration of actorhood in all sorts of education entities, even leading government agencies to become more like contemporary organizations (Brunsson & Sahlin-​Andersson, 2000). From the turn of the 20th century, a focus on the achievement of administrative efficiency in schools expanded in the image of Frederick Taylor’s conceptions of scientific management (1911). The pursuit of finding an imagined “one best system” of schooling became a central focus (Tyack, 1974). Measurement of inputs and outputs are central to processes of scientized managerial control, and in education all sorts of data and measurement activities expand. Early efforts included more localized counting of pupils, teachers, and materials, with expansion over time into more complex concepts—​such as learning and school quality—​now to be measured globally. Quantified assessment in its current form is largely a product of organization and management theory, and increasingly independent organizations are the entities used to administer and monitor a great deal of testing. International tests such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) are explicitly conceived of as instruments for scientific, external evaluation of education systems, as part of knowledge production for evidence-​based policymaking (Mangez & Hilgers, 2012). In line with our arguments here, several studies document the central role of world culture in driving the expansion of testing worldwide, alongside factors such as colonial legacy, wealth, and level of democracy (Furuta, 2020; Kamens & Benavot, 2011; Kamens & McNeely, 2010; Ramirez et al., 2018). Moreover, within education INGOs there is an increase over time of world cultural emphases, as mission statements increasingly emphasize scientific, expert, and knowledge-​based activities (Bromley, 2010). Very much related, there is now a large body of literature looking at the effect of ideas of the “world class university” and global university rankings systems (Deem et al., 2008;

132    Minju Choi et al. Sadlak & Liu, 2007; Shin & Khem, 2012). Some of these entities are for-​profit organizations, such as the US News & World Report, which administers a powerful ranking of American universities. Others are nonprofit, such as the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), or intergovernmental organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which operates PISA. The scientization behind this transformation to education is direct. For example, the organization that carries out what is known as the “Shanghai Ranking” of universities states: Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Clarivate Analytics, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index-​Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance of a university. More than 1800 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 1000 are published. One of the factors for the significant influence of ARWU is that its methodology is scientifically sound, stable and transparent. (ARWU Website, 2020)

Importantly, the expansion of principles of scientific management as a means to govern educational outcomes is not a neutral act. It represents a power structure, including the rise of a cadre of autonomous organizations producing assessments, ratings, and rankings. There are dramatic consequences for institutions of education. As one example, sociologists Wendy Espeland and Michael Sauder have produced a series of outstanding studies documenting the ways in which universities respond to rankings (Espeland & Sauder, 2007, 2016). They describe a process akin to Foucault’s concepts of governmentality and self-​discipline, whereby the principles of scientific rationalization embedded in the rankings possess a power and authority unto themselves (Sauder & Espeland, 2009). It is an ironic twist that actors, in the liberal model, are imagined to be both highly empowered and great conformists (Meyer, 2010).

Proposition 2. Rise of Emphases on Organization in Content of Education A second expected change is that the content of education shifts to place more emphasis on formal organization. We argue that this increased emphasis on organization in the content of education normalizes and legitimates the expansion of organizations and participation in an organizational society. This normalization and legitimation process reinforces the recursive relationship between education and organization. An increasingly central, but often implicit, goal of contemporary schooling is to prepare students for participation in a globalized organizational society. Earlier goals continue, such as providing national citizenship training, preparation for a domestic economy, or

World Culture, Education, and Organization    133 religious and cultural socialization, but organizational emphases are on the rise. We expect parts of this change to be very direct, such as growing emphasis on organizations of all sorts in curricular content at both lower and higher levels of education. But changes could also be indirect, with more nuanced changes in the nature of schooling toward preparing students to participate in a world of modern, formal organization, rather than one of, say, religious institutions or bureaucracy. For instance, students may informally receive guidance from teachers on “being professional” in how they send emails, with the implication being they are preparing for proper participation in a contemporary organizational workplace. We can think of this as “organizational socialization” for participation in an organizational society, akin to the processes of political socialization for which schooling is well known (Van Maanen & Schein, 1977). In the institutional arguments put forth here, we expect curricular changes to occur as a cultural matter beyond functional demands; educational changes may outpace actual organizational expansion in some areas, and educational changes are unlikely to create objectively functional organizations. More specifically, we expect: 1. Increased Curricular Emphases on Organizations. Curricular content will expand to discuss organizations in both domestic and international contexts. This will occur most in contexts more closely to liberal and neoliberal world culture (e.g., over time with cultural globalization or in countries most linked to global shifts), beyond the material interests of elites and beyond demonstrable function. 2. Increased Emphases on Participation in an Organizational Society. Schooling will increasingly aim to prepare students to participate in an organizational society in both domestic and international contexts. This will occur most in contexts tied more closely to liberal and neoliberal world culture (e.g., over time with cultural globalization or in countries most linked to global shifts), beyond the material interests of elites and beyond demonstrable function.

Increased Curricular Emphases on Organizations As preliminary evidence of our arguments in mass schooling, we draw on two data sets that track changes in high school textbook content over time for history, civics, social studies, and geography. The first data set is a sample of 527 Canadian and US textbooks published between 1836 and 2011, which were coded for whether different types of organizations are discussed as positively contributing to society. We observe Canada and the United States as “early adopters” of these norms (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). The empirical study observes the overall trends of proportions of textbooks that discuss domestic for-​profit, nonprofit organizations, and international governmental, nongovernmental organizations. While the empirical examples below demonstrate how textbooks positively discuss organizations, one could also examine how organizations are perceived negatively in textbooks.

134    Minju Choi et al. As observed in Figure 5.9, textbooks increasingly discuss both for-​profit and nonprofit forms of organizations over time. Business actors are discussed at greater frequencies than nonprofit organizations at all time periods, and they are also discussed earlier on in textbooks. Legalization and codification of for-​profits mark the beginning of the legitimization process for business organizations in Canada and the United States. Discussions of nonprofits appear around the 1870s, as they became formalized as organizational actors separate from their for-​profit counterparts (Kaufman, 2008; Levy, 2016). For both groups, there is a fairly steady increase over time, with the increase in discussions of nonprofits most noticeable in the 20th century. Organizations are perceived as social actors, as evidenced by this example from a Canadian textbook published in the 1980s. The textbook portrays the Canadian Pacific Railway as a powerful actor that solves social problems and contributes to society’s development: The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway made large-​scale settlement of the West possible. The potential for wheat farming on the fertile Prairie lands had been recognised for some time` . . The CPR owned vast areas of the Prairies. It started immediately to sell many of these lands, making them available to settlers. (Bowers & Garrod, 1987, p. 212)

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Proportion of textbooks that discuss organizations as positively contributing to society

In comparison to domestic organizations, international organizations are relatively new forms of organizations that gained authority and legitimacy in the early 20th century and particularly after World War II. For example, a Canadian textbook

Decadal average Business

Nonprofits

Figure 5.9  Discussions of for-​profit and nonprofit organizational actors in Canadian and US textbooks, 1836–​2011. (Source: Data adapted from Choi et al., 2020)

World Culture, Education, and Organization    135 from the 2000s describes Amnesty International as a legitimate actor that resolves social problems. The textbook describes an instance during which the organization successfully addressed a domestic challenge: “in 1986, the Canadian branch of Amnesty International played a leading role in opposing the campaign to reinstate the death penalty in Canada” (Fielding & Evans, 2001, p. 439). The textbook also legitimizes Amnesty International’s actions in the global sphere, stating that “Amnesty’s work was recognized when it received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977” (Fielding & Evans, 2001, p. 439). As demonstrated in Figure 5.10, discussions of international governmental organizations (IGOs) and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in Canadian and US social science textbooks start to emerge in the 1920s. In earlier decades of the 20th century, a greater proportion of textbooks mention IGOs as actors positively contributing to society. INGOs rise at a slower rate than IGOs but steadily increase, with a notable rise in the 1990s. Similarly, preliminary evidence suggests a growing emphasis on international organizations in textbooks as occurring worldwide. Our second data set presents a cross-​ national sample of 643 social science textbooks from 80 countries around the world, which shows similarly increasing discussions of IGOs and INGOs in middle and high school textbooks published between 1950 and 2011. These textbooks cover subjects including social studies, civics or government, history, religion, geography, and moral education. The proportions of textbooks that mention IGOs and INGOs both increase 1

Proportion that discuss organizations as positively contributing to society

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Figure 5.10  Discussions of international governmental and nongovernmental organizational actors in Canadian and US textbooks, 1836–​2011. (Source: Data adapted from Choi et al., 2020)

136    Minju Choi et al.

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Figure 5.11  Discussions of international governmental and nongovernmental organizational actors in cross-​national textbooks, 1950–​2011.

over time, although INGOs are discussed at lower rates than IGOs (Figure 5.11).6 This finding is consistent with what was observed in the Canadian and US textbooks, demonstrating that the rising emphasis on organizations in educational content is not unique to Canada and the United States. While country and regional variations certainly exist, the empirical study sheds light on the worldwide diffusion of the “organizational society.” Illustratively, we also observe changes in higher education and its curricular content. Professional management education diffuses worldwide, with an increasing number of countries adopting Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs and establishing business schools in universities (Moon & Wotipka, 2006). Similarly, nonprofit management programs and studies have rapidly expanded in the last several decades. In the late 1970s and 1980s, few US and UK universities started establishing master’s degree programs in nonprofit management, which has grown exponentially in the 1990s (Mirabella & Young, 2012). As demonstrated in Table 5.1, the number of US universities offering nonprofit management education continues to grow. Notably, these programs are spread throughout academic disciplines, including arts and sciences, business, public administration, and social work, among others (Mirabella, 2007). These programs can be found worldwide, offered by universities as well as nonprofit sector-​based organizations themselves in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America (Mirabella et al., 2007). With a growing number of nonprofit programs and courses offered, the number of doctoral dissertations and theses that focus on nonprofit organizations steadily

World Culture, Education, and Organization    137 Table 5.1 Growth of Nonprofit Management Education (NME) by Program Type in the United States Year

1996

2002

2006

2020

66

86

117

145

Universities offering NME graduate courses

128

155

161

252

Universities offering NME noncredit courses

51

72

75

86

Universities offering NME undergraduate courses

Universities offering NME continuing education courses

39

57

56

78

Universities offering NME online courses

N/​A

10

17

82

Number of institutions

179

253

238

342

Source: Adapted from Mirabella (2007) and Mirabella (2020).

increases. The proportion of theses and dissertations relating to nonprofit studies, out of the total number of theses and dissertations published between 1986 and 2010, increased five times from 0.1% in 1986 to 0.5% in 2010 (Shier & Handy, 2014). Reflecting this growing attention to nonprofit organizations and their management in higher education content, the number of peer-​reviewed articles that focus on nonprofit and/​or philanthropic topics, themes, or organizations also proliferated from 8,037 published articles in the 2000–​2005 time period to 13,290 articles in the 2006–​2011 time period (Jackson et al., 2014). As evidenced by these expansionary trends, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations increasingly become recognized as a legitimate academic field. Relatedly, a cursory search of a university catalog would likely reveal dozens of courses about organizations in many fields. Looking just at the 2020–​ 2021 course offerings at Stanford University shows dozens of courses that span multiple departments—​education, business, engineering, and others—​and they address a wide range of issues. Some focus on capitalist agendas of profit growth and marketing, but many others address social issues and seemingly look for ways to tame unfettered capitalism by focusing on ameliorating gender and racial discrimination, emphasizing corporate social responsibility, or considering issues of the nonprofit sector and inequality. Although a more detailed empirical study is needed, our argument is that broad organizational offerings like these are not unique to one university but rather emerge in many universities in a wide array of settings over time (e.g., public and private universities, wealthy and poor universities, universities in all kinds of countries). This expansiveness occurs, in our view, because of the globalized cultural principles underpinning educational and organizational expansion.

Increased Emphases on Participation in an Organizational Society A long-​standing assertion in the sociology of education is that schooling reflects wider influences. Most literatures have focused on the ways in which schooling reflects goals of socializing national citizens (Dreeben, 1968; Marshall, 1950), provides skills that produce more productive workers (Becker, 1964; Schultz, 1961), or serves the interests of the elite (Bourdieu, 1977). In contrast, we propose that education reflects a broader cultural

138    Minju Choi et al. context that is not reducible to self-​interest or function (Meyer, 1977). With the rise of an organizational society as a cultural ideal, old purposes are not enough and a new agenda emerges in education: Education should now also teach students to participate in a world of organizations where they should be part of these entities for work, to promote social change, and for well-​being. The question of whether such a shift occurs, and if it is in part culturally driven, can be answered empirically. For example, studies could examine the possible expansion and effects of 21st-​century skills that encourage students to develop skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, entrepreneurial thinking, communication, and use of technology (Kay & Greenhill, 2011). Pedagogies such as project-​based learning indicate a transformed vision of the ways in which students acquire knowledge and skills. Rather than solely assessing students’ ability to retain information, project-​based learning is thought to promote students’ ability to use knowledge to carry out a successful project. The introduction of such pedagogical practice emphasizes the skills such as collaboration, negotiation, and planning, all of which are viewed as essential for success in the modern organizational workplace (Bell, 2010). In an alternative world where organizations are not the dominant form of social structure, schooling might be imagined as preparing students for obedience to God or to follow the rules of factory work. At the extreme, students are even supported to participate and establish their own organizations—​a reflection of the valorization of organizations in society. For example, establishing an organization in high school becomes a useful signal for university applications. The Princeton Review, a company that offers test preparation and college admissions resources, lists a number of tips for participating in high school clubs. One piece of advice encourages students to “try to gain professional experience,” preparing students for a smooth transition into not only college clubs but also the professional world (The Princeton Review, n.d.). Another tip advises students to start their own clubs if they cannot find ones they want to join. Taking such initiatives demonstrates students’ leadership skills and empowers individual students to achieve goals through organizations. Accordingly, increased emphasis on participation in an organizational society through educational content normalizes and legitimizes the role of organizations as active and purposeful social actors. We view these trends as in part culturally driven, likely to diffuse far beyond elite self-​interest or known effectiveness or need in settings linked to world culture. Future research could test our propositions, particularly considering the various types of organizational actors that are represented in and are shaping education.

Conclusion One core implication of our arguments is that the organizational transformation of education, arising as part of world culture, marks a fundamental shift in the nature of authority that underpins education systems. As the number and type of organizational

World Culture, Education, and Organization    139 actors expand and their status and legitimacy grow, decision-​making processes are transformed. Nonprofit and community organizations, alongside other private actors, become increasingly active in political processes by advocating policy solutions to governments (Ball, 2012; Reckhow, 2016; Tompkins-​ Stange, 2020). Unilateral directives from the top of a hierarchy become less acceptable, and instead it becomes an imperative to consult with an array of stakeholder groups (typically organizations). Relatedly, partnerships and collaborations, especially across sectors (e.g., public–​private partnerships), become more celebrated. Public administration scholars have described a shift from “government” to “governance” to capture the changed nature of control occurring across all public sectors (Rhodes, 2007). The concept is intended to convey horizontal relations where decisions are negotiated across multiple stakeholders and levels (e.g., Bache & Flinders 2005; Fransen, 2012; Vidal, 2014), in contrast to top-​down government regulation (Osborne, 2006). Education remains largely in the hands of national governments, yet independent organizational actors play increasing roles not only in service provision but also in policy and decision-​making, and in monitoring and evaluation activities. For example, during the COVID-​19 global pandemic San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), like many other school systems, needed to decide on policies for school reopening in the wake of closures. To come to a decision, SFUSD coordinated not only with health authorities but also with local nonprofit organizations, universities, parent–​teacher associations (PTAs), the teachers’ union, and looked to countries like South Korea and Denmark for guidance (Stanford-​SFUSD Partnership, 2019). In the midst of a medical public health crisis, it was taken for granted that the inclusion of different types of actors was not only legitimate but necessary. Inclusive decision-​making processes make sense in a context where all sorts of entities are imagined as actors sharing the basic principles of world culture. A second key implication is that education plays a central role in shaping, normalizing, and legitimizing the “organizational society” (Thompson, 1980). Formal organizations emerged as a distinctive feature of modernity, and the structures of these organizations have been heavily influenced by modern schooling (Duke, 2019). Education links the empowerment of individuals with greater control over a rationalized knowledge system in the world (Bromley & Meyer, 2015). Education shapes individuals’ participation in organizational society by influencing and supporting a rationalized knowledge system. Through educational content, practices, and structures, education also normalizes and legitimizes organizational society. In some views, expanded organization is a key solution to pressing global problems, although historically this has not always been the case. When a social, political, or economic need or problem emerges in the globalized liberal cultural context, a common response is to create new organizations and organizational practices to “solve” the problem. And all kinds of organizations, including for-​profit, nonprofit, and nongovernmental organizations, are increasingly led by managerial professionals with degrees in business administration (Hwang & Powell, 2009). In other views, organizations represent a central source of inequality and oppression in society (Coleman, 1982; Perrow,

140    Minju Choi et al. 1991). Business organizations are frequently accused of the pursuit of self-​interest at the expense of social good (Alcadipani & de Oliveira Medeiros, 2019; Washburn, 2004). But nonprofit and philanthropic organizations are also pointed to as sources of corruption and inequality in need of ethical oversight (Archambeault et al., 2015; Bromley & Orchard, 2016; Burger & Owens, 2010). Regardless of one’s position on organizations, to fully participate in global organizational society—​and especially to excel in it—​requires a great deal of formal education. Thus, these two spheres—​education and organizations—​are at the heart of national and global stratification systems. In the contemporary world broadly, and in education systems specifically, organizations serve as a core source of both problems and solutions, placing greater authority in organizations as actors. As decoupling occurs between signaled commitments and actual enactments of proposed organizational solutions, organizations themselves are called upon as the solutions to the very problems they create.

Notes 1. The three first authors contributed equally. 2. We focus on an institutional explanation for the diffusion of Western cultural principles (Meyer et al., 1997), but multiple factors are likely at play and empirical research can help to disentangle the explanations. For instance, some scholars focus on the exploitative power dynamics that benefit Western countries (Tabulawa, 2003; Wallerstein, 1984), and others argue a functional modernization process is at work (classically, see Lipset, 1959). 3. For detailed discussions of the concept of actorhood, see also Hwang et al., 2019; Hwang & Colyvas, 2020; Patriotta, 2020. 4. Paxton et al. (2015) operationalize country-​connectedness to the world polity using country scores that measure centrality in the global country-​INGO network. Other measures that are often used in measuring embeddedness in world polity include the KOF cultural globalization index, Polity IV data set, and World Development Indicators, among others. 5. See Schofer and Longhofer (2011) for a detailed discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of these data, and an analysis of their representativeness. 6. Preliminary analysis from a cross-​national data set that covers 1900 to 2011, encompassing the sample of 643 textbooks discussed here, shows that discussions of IGOs in textbooks appear since the 1910s and reach a peak in the 1930s. Approximately half of the textbooks published in the 1930s mention IGOs, but this proportion declines in the following two decades, perhaps reflecting a weakening role of IGOs and international cooperation associated with the World War II period.

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chapter 6

Gl obaliz at i on, New Institu tiona l i sms , a nd the P olitical Di me nsi on Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons

Introduction The aim of this chapter is to examine the different conceptions of globalization in education proposed by authors who have drawn inspiration from one or other of the neoinstitutionalist approaches and to analyze the status of the political dimension involved in the changes studied. At first glance, one might think that much of this work has already been done. The neoinstitutionalist perspective on world culture theory (WCT), developed as early as the 1970s by John Meyer and his colleagues, has been massively taken up but also repeatedly criticized (e.g., Carney et al., 2012; Hartley, 2003; Schriewer, 2012). Partly in response to these criticisms, literature reviews of the neoinstitutionalist theories used in the field of comparative education have already clarified the different approaches (e.g., Wiseman et al., 2014). Nevertheless, three considerations call for a careful reexamination of this subject. First, neoinstitutionalist approaches are much more diverse than these initial debates suggest. The work on WCT and the mechanisms of isomorphism is indeed far from exhausting the different conceptions of institutions, institutional change, and institutionalist theories proposed in the international literature. It is even far from exhausting the sociological neoinstitutionalism (NI) itself in which they are sometimes classified. For example, recent work is more based on the multidimensional conceptualizations of institutions proposed by Richard Scott (1995) or places greater emphasis on change and the institutional work of actors (Campbell, 2004; Lawrence et al., 2009). The opening of WCT proposed by Alexander Wiseman, Fernanda Astiz, and David Baker (2014) in their review proves in this respect to be still very timid and limited to a NI qualified as “political.”

148    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons Second, reflections on NI beyond the field of educational research, for example in political science, sociology, or economics, have evolved considerably in recent years and strong criticism has sometimes been leveled at the institutionalist work involved. Vivien Schmidt (2008), for example, argued that NIs do not take sufficient account of the importance of discourses in analyzing institutional change. This, she maintains, undermined the political dimension of institutional change. It does not give sufficient weight to ideas, deliberative processes, the persuasive power of political actors, and more generally to the ongoing reshaping of the interests of actors in the battle of ideas. All these dimensions are considered much more, in her view, by discursive NI. Are these new reflections and criticisms then taken into account in neoinstitutionalist work when thinking about the globalization of education (policies), and how? Third, a significant part of the work on globalization, understood, for example, through questions of policy transfers, the circulation of influential transnational doctrines, or the performative power of new measurement instruments, proposes hybrid theoretical frameworks in which the institutionalist perspective is nourished and enriched by numerous and varied theoretical contributions from, for example, policy analysis or governance theories (e.g., Steiner-​Khamsi & Waldow, 2012). For these reasons, we argue for the importance not to approach the articulation among NI, globalization, and educational policies primarily through an abstract dialogue of major theoretical approaches. Indeed, this dialogue, already partly debated in the literature, often depends on the privileged, but in fact partial, observation posts of the field of research to which the authors concerned, however eminent they may be, have access. There would then be a great risk of perpetuating a form of “neoinstitutionalist parochialism,” to paraphrase Roger Dale (2005), according to which this articulation would only be thought out from a particular point of view on what “real” NI would or should be. Our approach, on the contrary, is more empirical and based on a literature review of a corpus of 61 English-​and French-​language articles. The modalities of constitution and exploitation of this corpus are detailed in the first section. The analysis of the selected contributions consisted in studying precisely, for each of them, the visions proposed by the authors of globalization, NI, and politics in the broad sense. This analysis led us to distinguish three major research strands. The first is largely structured around the debate on WCT and isomorphism of education systems under the effect of a world culture and world polity. The second strand consists in analyzing the importance of the institutional mediations of globalization at work in different educational contexts under the effect of various mechanisms, not only mimetic, the agency of certain actors, and/​or the instrumentation of education policies. The last strand is more heterogeneous and brings together works that have in common the emphasis on institutional change and institutional emergence as it weakens or recomposes preexisting institutional arrangements. These strands are not impermeable to each other. Rather, they sediment as authors cross-​reference their work at some point. However, as we shall see, they convey often contrasting visions of globalization and, most important for our purpose, of the policy

New Institutionalisms and the Political Dimension    149 dimension. We thus present, in conclusion, some complementary lines of analysis offering relevant avenues for theoretical developments.

Methodology Our literature review can be defined as a scoping review. Focusing on theoretical aspects, its objective is to “map rapidly the key concepts underpinning a research area and the main sources and types of evidence available” (Mays et al., 2001, p. 194) in order to “examine the extent, range and nature of research activity” and to “identify [possible] research gaps in the existing literature” (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005, p. 21). This review is based on the intensive analysis of a corpus of 61 research articles, in both English (n =​51) and French (n =​10). Several stages of research were necessary to constitute this corpus. First, we queried two types of online databases known for the richness of their documentary holdings—​commonly used documentary portals giving access to numerous journals (Eric, Sociological abstracts, Worldwide political science abstracts for the English-​speaking works; Cairn, Erudit, Openeditions, and Persée for the French-​ speaking part) and the online search engines of the publishers of large international journals particularly relevant to our object, such as Sage (European Educational Research Journal), JSTOR (Comparative Education Review), and Taylor & Francis (Comparative Education; Compare; Discourse; Journal of Education Policy; and Globalisation, Societies and Education). In each of these databases, we carried out a keyword search for the period 2000–​2020, primarily in the abstract field, using the following series of keywords: “global” (use of truncation as systematically as possible), “policy/​politics/​polity/​reform,” “institutionalism,” and “education.” After a first reading of the results, we add “theory” to the keyword “institutionalism,” to get access to articles with a strong theoretical dimension. We went through or read the 1,245 abstracts of articles obtained in this way, and in the end, we selected 103 of them (75 in English, 28 in French). The main reasons for nonselection at this stage were the general lack of relevance of the article to our research object (no reflection on globalization or institutionalist theories, for example), the existence of duplicates, or coverage of a field other than education. We went through all these articles in a double-​blind fashion, excluding those that made no or little explicit mention of institutions in the broad sense and to institutional processes (reason 1) and those that proposed an essentially descriptive (meaning not theorized or conceptualized) approach to institutionalization (reason 2). The comparison of our individual selections led us to retain only 61 articles. They are cited in the References section with an asterisk, to distinguish them from other references that we mobilize for the needs of the analysis. These additional references are of two types: (1) important references to account for WCT that escape our review either because they are prior to 2000 or because they are extracted from Handbooks that our sources do not

150    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons allow to be considered, (2) various references on one or other forms of NI or relating to our perspective of analysis, questioning globalization, politics, and institutions (e.g., Schmidt, 2008). We then coded these articles in three dimensions. The first was about globalization: Is it conceptualized, or even just defined? Is it understood by related objects or by some of its manifestations (measurement instruments or transnational doctrines, for example) or is it left implicit? The second dimension concerned neoinstitutionalist theories themselves. What type of NI is favored by the authors: rational, historical, sociological, discursive . . . or implicit when some authors propose an institutionalist reasoning without referring to these main types distinguished in the literature? What vision of institutional change do these articles present? What factors of institutional change or convergence/​ divergence are envisaged (role of mechanisms, ideas, actors, instruments, discourses, etc.)? The last dimension referred to the importance of the political question in these articles. At this stage, we relied on a classic distinction in political science between polity, politics, and policy. This led us to interrogate this political dimension by studying how the articles analyzed the design and implementation of educational policies, reforms, measures (policy), the struggles among constituted political actors to define their common political project (politics), and finally what general political model or higher and encompassing symbolic and institutional entity these public policies and these struggles drew (polity) (Leca, 2012).

Research Strand 1: “World Culture” and World Polity The theory of “world culture” developed by John Meyer and his colleagues is important for our purposes for two reasons. It has a central scientific status in the field of comparative education and the globalization of education. And it transposes and deepens concepts of sociological NI initially applied to the field of organizations (Meyer & Scott, 1983; Scott & Meyer, 1994). This is the case for the notions of isomorphism, decoupling, or the constitution of actors’ identities and interests by institutions, considered as “cultural accounts” internalized in the cognitive and normative visions of the actors but also objectified in structures, perceived as external and reified (in the wake of the constructivist sociology of Berger & Luckmann, 1967).

The Centrality and Dual Status of Globalization in WCT Globalization appears in two forms in WCT: The first derives from the theoretical assumptions of sociological NI and the other from a set of empirical studies that have developed notably in the field of education, from the 1980s until today. Neoinstitutionalists

New Institutionalisms and the Political Dimension    151 recognize that globalization at the turn of the 21st century has several dimensions (political, economic, expansion of a global expressive culture) (Drori, 2008; Meyer, 2000). However, what is central to their theoretical concerns is the reality of an “expanded flow of instrumental culture around the world. Put simply: Common models of social order become authoritative in many different social settings” (Meyer, 2000, pp. 233–​234). This “world order” is linked to the existence of a global sociological level (world society, world culture, world polity), the extent and mechanisms of which must be taken into account in order to understand the institutional transformations taking place in national and local contexts: “in many areas of social life, common models organized in world discourse arise and penetrate social life worldwide” (Meyer, 2000, p. 234). Thus, there would be a set of “rationalized myths,” conceptions of the world and of humans constructed in the course of Western history but which have subsequently acquired a global status (Meyer et al., 1997). This global culture—​the content of which is in line with a Weberian reading of Western rationalization (Carney et al., 2012)—​carries values (progress, human rights, democracy, rationality) and defines principles that ontologically circumscribe the identity of conceivable and legitimate actors in the modern world (nation states, organizations, individuals). These “taken-​for-​granted” identities go hand in hand with normative expectations of them (e.g., autonomy, instrumental rationality).1 Rather than mechanically applying these “scripts” or models, actors actively take them into account and “enact” them creatively (Boli & Thomas, 1999), to (secure) the legitimacy of their status and identity (Ramirez, 2012). It should also be noted that the components (values, scripts, norms, standards) of this global culture are presented in increasingly universalist (but not universal), highly rationalized forms, such as the abstract definition of human rights, health, or development. This global culture is a key explanatory variable for the empirical form of globalization in the education sector (Ramirez & Meyer, 1980). On the one hand, education is becoming increasingly valuable to individuals and nation states, as it is seen as a driver of economic and social development, but also as a guarantor of the development of individual citizens. This belief, which is at the heart of world culture, is reflected in the expansion of mass schooling, which has grown decisively worldwide since World War II (Boli et al., 1985; Meyer et al., 1992). On the other hand, educational globalization is manifested in the isomorphism of educational structures (school curriculum, ministries of education, qualification structures) (Benavot et al., 1991). In the recent period, educational policies have also tended to converge globally (Ramirez et al., 2016): for example, inclusion policies (Powell et al., 2016), standards for crisis education (Bromley & Andina, 2010), international standardized assessments (Kamens & McNeely, 2010), the “research university” model (Powell et al., 2017), lifelong learning (Jakobi & Rusconi, 2009), or educational policy goals (Jakobi, 2011). The formalization and dissemination of the principles and scripts of this rationalized and universalist world culture is promoted mainly by two types of organizations, which form the “world polity,” the second organizational component which, together with world culture, constitutes the diptych of world society. It is made up of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs, such as Amnesty, etc.) or intergovernmental

152    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons organizations (IGOs, such as UNESCO, the OECD, and so on) which experienced remarkable growth and extension of their fields of action throughout the 20th century (Boli & Thomas, 1999). In addition, professional associations play a key role in the adaptation and dissemination of streamlined models or standards in national or subnational entities (Meyer, 2000). These processes of convergence and isomorphism do not mean, however, that these proclaimed ideals, stated policies, or similar educational structures and programs are translated into actual practices that conform to them. Indeed, taking up a concept they had already used in their earlier studies on organizations (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), this theory argue that the highly abstract character, the tensions inherent in the rationalizing myths of world culture, and the contradictions between the different institutional scripts that make it up (between freedom and equality, between the individual or collective goals of education) favor a “decoupling” between formal models, categories, and structures and their actual practices. Such a decoupling explains why very divergent practices can be observed from one country or organization to another. Finally, educational globalization is doubly important for WCT. First, it is an important empirical variable to explain the increasing convergence and isomorphism of structures and policies at the international level. It is also a sociological and conceptual reality (world culture and its organizational forms—​world polity—​constitutive of “world society”) which is distinguished as much by its scale of analysis (global) as by its more abstract level of complexity and its effect of structuring and orienting entities of lesser abstraction such as individuals, organizations, or nation states (Jepperson & Meyer, 2011). The concepts of “world society” and “world polity” will be used above all to show that globalization is neither reducible to a network of interdependencies between local or national actors nor to “supranational” actors (dominant states, multinationals) orchestrating globalization from above (Thomas, 2009).

The Political Dimension In the vast body of research developed by WCT, the place given to the political dimension is relatively modest. There is an empirical emphasis on the emergence and reinforcement of a “world polity” without the notion being really elaborated in reference to political theory (Leca, 2012). Many authors use it interchangeably with the notion of world society (Thomas, 2009), even if the latter notion is often preferred (as in the canonical text by Meyer et al., 1997). Moreover, the role of political struggles and domination (politics), like that of “policies,” is minor or secondary in the explanations of the emergence of world culture/​polity, as well as in the mechanisms of its global extension or its manifestations in different fields of social life. What then are the contours of this world polity? It is made up of multilateral international organizations—​often nongovernmental organizations—​which do not have the power to impose themselves on actors at other levels of analysis, nation states, companies, nonprofit organizations, or individual citizens. Indeed, “the world society

New Institutionalisms and the Political Dimension    153 is a stateless polity. It has no central, controlling political organizations in it—​no state organization with legitimate sovereignty over or responsibility for the whole” (Meyer, 2000, p. 236). The diffusion of the common principles of world culture therefore operates through osmosis and the cognitive and normative influence of the international organizations that promote them. The networks of influential organizations are perceived as “disinterested third parties” by the subunits of world society (Meyer et al., 1997) who refer to them according to the authority (of science or technical or moral expertise) of which they are the carriers. For example, the convergence of educational goals, structures, and policies in the world is essentially linked to the quest for legitimacy of nation states (emerging or old) which tend, in order to ensure their credibility and the legitimacy of their status as modern states, to align their school structures and practices with the principles and models of world culture, particularly with regard to education. The authority of the world polity is therefore not the same as (legal or traditional) domination in the sense of Max Weber (Boli & Thomas, 1999). Moreover, the dynamics of this polity do not equate it with those of canonical types (nation state or empire). In fact, the existence and expansion of world society derive, according to Drori, from a dynamic “between polity and culture,” where “the current world polity is a reflection of world cultural trends as much as it is a codification of such norms into formal structures of action and policy making” (Drori, 2008, p. 457). The form of the world polity thus has four characteristics: It is “expansive,” “heterogeneous,” “dynamic,” and “loosely organized and highly decentralized” (Drori, 2008). In turn, the world polity tends to influence the development of world culture in two ways: (1) growth of issues defined as global (from human rights to environmentalism to inequality); (2) treatment of these issues by a double logic of “rationalization” (systematization, standardization, scientization of social life) and “actorhood” (i.e., “the sense of empowered agency attributed to social actors,” which goes hand in hand with the idea of a “manageable” world) (Drori, 2008, p. 461). Finally, the world polity as understood by WCT does not have the classic attributes associated with a polity by political theory (Leca, 2012). It implies neither an obligatory and nonchosen membership of this political entity nor the prohibition of the use of violence by its members, whose legitimate monopoly is the prerogative of the polity itself, empire, or nation state. On the other hand, the world polity is said to share another feature of a polity, which “is the symbolic assertion of an all-​embracing collective identity” (Leca, 2012, p. 63), since, on the basis of the different facets of human rights, the world polity promotes the model of a global citizenship (Boli & Thomas, 1999), without all states or individuals claiming it. It contributes to consolidating “a global imagined community” (Drori, 2008, p. 456). Unlike the concept of polity, the active exercise of power (politics), whether at the level of international organizations, the state, or other spheres, is given very little consideration in WCT’s theorization of globalization. First, the genesis of the world polity cannot be reduced, from their point of view, “to states, transnational corporations, or national forces and interest groups” as claimed by critical theories, which tend to reduce them

154    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons to power relations, reducing culture to a “set of values” and to an ideology linked to interests (Boli & Thomas, 1999, p. 13; see also Meyer, 2000). Nor can it be reduced to controversial responses to functional coordination needs related to increasing global interdependencies among nation states or multinational firms (Ramirez, 2012). The emergence of the world polity seems rather to be the international organizational counterpart and vector of the global culture. It proceeds from an endogenous cultural trend of modern and now global society. We are far from the explanations of “polities” by political sociology, several of whose theories have, for example, emphasized the crucial role of conflicts and struggles in the socio-​historical construction of the nation state, which is seen as a polity monopolizing various key “capitals” and resources of power (Weber, Elias, Bourdieu, for example). WCT’s analysis of the socio-​historical genesis of world society and world polity thus clearly tends to underplay struggles and relations of domination. Similarly, the mechanism of “coercion” (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) is downplayed (if not eliminated) as a mechanism for the diffusion of global culture, in favor of a cognitive mechanism, since the diffusion of norms is achieved through the enactment of institutionalized cultural models or scripts. However, some authors argue that the structuring role of world culture does not mean that the models and standards disseminated by world society do not imply political conflicts or struggles (Boli & Thomas, 1999). Indeed, global cultural frameworks can be ambiguous, contradictory, or only ceremonially and symbolically applied, thus generating conflict and dissent. Moreover, some works consider the conflict issues and struggles of (subnational) social movements as structured by legitimate transnational cultural models, which these movements thereby contribute to symbolically reinforcing (Astiz et al., 2002). Zapp and Ramirez (2019) analyze the diverse mechanisms (cognitive/​discursive, normative, regulatory, and coercive) through which the trend toward the construction of a “global regime of higher education” operates. Finally, educational policies are considered by WCT, but as dependent rather than independent variables. Policies are various enactments of the principles and frameworks of global culture, rather than the result of national or local political struggles. For example, the parallel development of standardized assessment of students is explained by the influence of cultural principles on government action, the influence of global educational ideology, the hegemony of science as a way of interpreting the world, and the conception of society as a “managed society” (Kamens & McNeely, 2010). Thus, for WCT the focus is primarily on the cognitive and normative constructs that constitute political interests and issues, rather than on political power plays and relations. Moreover, although modern rationalized and universalist culture circulates globally, it is not the result of a political structure or a globalized political entity, but rather of the uncoordinated action of different networks of international organizations (governmental or associative) that adhere to it and are its vectors. The result is the existence of a “world society,” the product of a “world culture,” crossed with a “world polity” of a non-​ state nature (Drori, 2008; Thomas, 2009).

New Institutionalisms and the Political Dimension    155

Research Strand 2: Analyzing the Logics of Institutional Mediation of Globalization in Different Contexts In the second research strand, framework and theoretical tools of NI, most often in its historical and/​or sociological variations, are used to think about the logics of mediation of educational globalization at work in different contexts (often between the global and national levels, but not only). Published from 2010 onward (with three exceptions), articles represent half of our sample (31 articles). French-​language works (n =​8) and those on higher education (n =​13) are particularly represented. Some of these articles are clearly an extension of the previous perspective. The aim is to use NI to shed light on the two sides of the globalization process. On the one hand, globalization is characterized by the dissemination of a global culture, a dissemination that takes place through various channels that are institutional pressures for change, whether these pressures are normative or cognitive, as WCT initially suggests, or of another nature. The diffusion of global scripts, such as the new imperative to implement “excellence” policies in higher education and research (Antonowicz et al., 2017), or that of various rankings with strong performative power (Buckner, 2020), are two examples. On the other hand, this diffusion can be “contingent” and give rise to strong local empirical variations depending on the weight of historical legacies. Some authors even argue that holding together these two aspects of the analysis—​both a global convergence of discourses on educational governance and strong local divergences in implementation according to the weight of institutional legacies—​constitutes a particularly fertile avenue of research for comparative education (Takayama, 2012). Nevertheless, this rather cumulative vision, which attempts to couple the proposals from WCT and historical NI, is clearly in the minority in this second group. On the contrary, the main analytical perspective remains to criticize the homogenizing vision of globalization present in their eyes in the work of WCT. They thus stress the centrality of domestic institutional arrangements which are at the origin of different forms of adaptation, sometimes of resistance, more often of translation, recontextualization, or accommodation to international or global institutional pressures.

Mediation Mechanisms, Actors, and Instruments Several theoretical approaches are proposed for the factors at the origin of these institutional arrangements. The first emphasizes the role of powerful institutional mechanisms such as path dependency in order to highlight the prevalence of local governance models that involve contrasting forms of globalization depending on the context (Hajisoteriou, 2010; Mincu, 2015; Powell et al., 2016). From a list of “indicators of

156    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons change” such as the decision-​making process or patterns of control and quality evaluation, Michael Dobbins distinguishes, for example, three ideal types of university governance in Europe: the state-​centered model, the model of self-​governing academic communities, and the market-​oriented model. These models then allow him to study the trajectory of certain higher education systems in Eastern Europe to show that these trajectories are far from being reduced in all cases to an automatic alignment with a transnational model (even if this type of alignment may exist) (Dobbins, 2011, 2017). In line with developments in historical NI, which form the theoretical framework of much of this literature, these trajectories are envisaged as the result of multiple path dependencies combined with the mechanisms of gradual change highlighted by Paul Pierson or Kathleen Thelen (Corbett, 2011; Maurer, 2012). The second approach aims to revalue in the analysis the role of actors and their room for maneuver in the adaptation of these institutional arrangements in the context of public policy change. This revaluation takes several forms and is more or less strong depending on the authors. Some point to the considerable scope for interpretation of institutional parameters by individuals when implementing education policies or producing discourses on them (Alexiadou & Bunt-​Kokhuis, 2013). Others understand these actors as fundamentally embedded in “policy networks” (Holland, 2010), “political settlements” (Rosser, 2016), or “institutional configurations” that strongly predefine their interests and possibilities for action (Luova, 2020). Others mobilize John Campbell’s multidimensional approach to institutions and emphasize the bricolage and translation operations of new public policy imperatives carried out by actors to evolve existing institutional arrangements while being constrained by them (Hsieh, 2016; Hsieh & Huisman, 2017). The latter approach is particularly developed in French-​language articles, where it ultimately constitutes the main analytical perspective, particularly as a result of the field of research on the instrumentation of public policies opened up in France by Pierre Lascoumes and Patrick Le Galès (2007). It emphasizes the importance of instruments and tools of “public action” in the analysis of policy change and the interest of taking into account the processes of instrumentation of these policies in order to understand the institutionalization of new modes of regulation or governance of education systems, as in the case of accountability policies (Verger et al., 2019). Some authors emphasize, for example, the performative effect of these instruments. This performative power is based both on their power to label the practices of actors, as in the case of international league tables, and on the anxious internalization of the stakes of this labeling by the actors (Buckner, 2020; Erkkilä & Kauppi, 2013; Mignot-​Gérard, 2012). Others use these tools methodologically as tracers of institutional change to study the processes of microinstitutionalization of new modes of regulation, such as the introduction of a new management of pedagogy under the effect of accountability policies in certain school systems (Maroy et al., 2012; Maroy & Vaillancourt, 2019). This approach often leads authors to qualify and complicate both the analysis of the reception of international measurement instruments and their power to influence the making of education

New Institutionalisms and the Political Dimension    157 policies, by stressing, for example, the structuring role of local institutional dynamics (Niemann et al., 2018).

Surrounding Globalization With a few exceptions that theorize globalization as a process of convergence toward a market-​oriented model (Dobbins, 2011, 2017) that is fundamentally neoliberal (Rosser, 2016), particularly in higher education, the majority of these works on institutional mediations do not theorize the notion of globalization itself. Globalization is mainly considered as an institutional environment that is the source of new institutional pressures, the effects of which are studied in context, in the education systems themselves. Globalization is thus studied mainly through the concrete forms taken by these pressures. The latter are often considered in the analysis as exogenous to the education systems studied and may be conceptualized differently from one author to another: “transnational discourses” (Alexiadou & Bunt-​Kokhuis, 2013), “travelling myths” (Mincu, 2015), and “global scripts” (Antonowicz et al., 2017). Several works also address globalization through the contextually differentiated reception of transnational doctrines, which often overlap in practice, such as New Public Management, accountability, or quality assurance (Csizmadia et al., 2008; Hsieh, 2016; Hsieh & Huisman, 2017; Maroy & Vaillancourt, 2019; Verger et al., 2019). Nevertheless, the theoretical tools of NI are not primarily used to conceptualize these institutional pressures as such. Symbolically, the aforementioned notions of scripts, discourses, or myths are most often evoked as contextual elements at the beginning of the analysis, and little taken up afterward, and it is generally assumed that their mere dissemination and adoption in formal policy programs are sufficient to illustrate their institutionalization. The tools of NI, particularly those of historical NI, are used instead to feed theoretical models that make it possible to think about the filtering, framing, and sometimes resisting role played by local institutional arrangements. According to an analytical movement common in the analysis of policy transfers, borrowings, and lendings, it is then a question of highlighting the differentiated political “responses” according to the predominant organizational logics (Csizmadia et al, 2008), the maintenance of a key role played by certain still dominant institutional actors such as the governments in power (Hsieh, 2016), or the concrete forms of political changes initiated from one system to another under the effect of various bricolage or translation operations (Hsieh & Huisman, 2017). Consequently, this work rarely leads to a reconceptualization of globalization as such from the theoretical tools of NI. The main horizon of the analysis remains the institutional mediations themselves and the highlighting of their deployment logics through detailed and often comparative empirical analyses.

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Politics of Situated Institutionalizations While such kind of interrogation does not immediately allow for a reconceptualization of globalization in education, it does have the merit of placing the political question at the heart of the analysis, by taking into account the political struggles that characterize policy change. One of the transversal characteristics of many works on the institutional mediations to which globalization gives rise is in fact that they are in strong dialogue with the results of international research on education policies, in particular with certain theoretical frameworks of policy analysis in political science. In this sense, these works clearly place policies (policy matters) at the center of the analysis. The aim may be to analyze the recomposition of policy spaces (Alexiadou & Bunt-​Kokhuis, 2013), to question the extent and concrete modalities of policy change (Hsieh, 2016; Hsieh & Huisman, 2017), or to study policy practices themselves, their institutionalization, and the translation operations at their foundation (Massouti, 2018). Depending on the authors, however, this approach can give rise to two different (but not incompatible) analytical perspectives on the political dimension. The first is more of a polity perspective and consists in mobilizing the theoretical frameworks of (historical) NI and policy implementation to question the evolution of major policy models in the face of transformations in the regulative dimension of institutions. This may involve questioning the reconfiguration of institutional arrangements characteristic of an initial public policy model, such as the welfare state at the origin of investment in children policies in Great Britain and Canada (Saint-​Martin, 2002); using the notion of institutional learning to highlight the Europeanization logics of educational policies at work in the field of lifelong learning (Lee et al, 2008); or, on the contrary, pointing out, on the basis of an analysis of long historical trajectories, the resistance of national models to international injunctions in certain developing countries, such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the field of technical and vocational education and training (Maurer, 2012). Nevertheless, this perspective seems less developed in our sample than the second, which is closer to a politics perspective insofar as it pays close attention to the interests of the actors in the policy process and the struggles that characterize them. Institutions are then seen as “rolling agreements among powerful actors that are constantly subject to renegotiation and contestation,” to use T. Parks and W. Cole’s expression (quoted by Rosser, 2016, p. 112). This perspective is particularly developed in articles on the new regulatory instruments emblematic of globalization, such as league tables or accountability tools. Indeed, these tools are often considered by the authors as interesting tracers of institutional change to be considered in the analysis. The latter then focuses on the instrumentation process as such, the forms and dynamics of which also depend on the outcome of the struggles among the institutional actors concerned. In all cases, the articles in this second group have in common that they put back actors, albeit embedded in preexisting institutional orders, struggling to define the constitutive rules of the policies

New Institutionalisms and the Political Dimension    159 that govern them. This aspect is, however, even more emphasized in the following research strand.

Research Strand 3: The Institutional Construction of New Forms of Globalization The research pieces that we grouped under this third strand are the most recent in our sample, published between 2009 and 2019, mainly in English-​language journals (11 texts out of 61, including two French-​language ones).2 While this research strand seems less stabilized and homogeneous than the previous ones, it nevertheless presents three remarkable features which form its specificity. First, these texts clearly emphasize institutional change. Rather than analyzing the diffusion of established global cognitive and normative constructs (strand 1) or focusing on contextually differentiated institutional mediations (strand 2), this third research strand analyzes the processes of change and the elaboration of new institutional constructs, which entangle, weaken, or recompose preexisting institutional arrangements. Second, the articles emphasize one or more sources (notably political) of institutional change, which tend to be minimized by classical (historical or sociological) NI: the role of actors and entrepreneurs of change; of ideas or discursive formations; or of policy tools in the orientation or effectiveness of institutional change. The impact of the three policy dimensions is thus highlighted. Third, this research is based on complex theoretical frameworks, which articulate notions from different branches of NI with one another or with more or less general theories from other streams. Finally, the empirical objects studied are renewed and vary in their nature and their scales of analysis (consideration of subnational or local levels).

Policies and Institutional Change: The Role of Discourses and Ideas A central feature of these issues is to mobilize NI (in its different versions) to think about institutional change and to understand its origins and singular orientations. It is a question of analyzing the very movement of changes linked to globalization through analysis of the genesis of various institutional constructs, of tracing the work of various entrepreneurs of change (political or organizational) who promote them “from above” and “from below,” or from outside the nation states. This problematic is thus in line with new theorizations of institutions that place greater emphasis on the issue of change, a less deterministic view of actors, and a more political and open conception of institutionalization processes (Boxenbaum & Pedersen, 2009; Demailly et al., 2019; Meyer &

160    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons Rowan, 2006). In other words, the institutional canopy is less concentrated on long cultural movements (Western modernity, cultural globalization) and is subject to shorter temporal changes, hence the focus on institutionalization/​deinstitutionalization, especially of political origin. Within this logic, the impact of policy ideas and discourses on the change of educational institutions is thematized in a particularly visible way. For example, Ninni Wahlström and Daniel Sundberg (2018) invoke discursive NI to analyze curricular changes in Sweden. Swedish policies are seen as discursive productions, whose contours must be traced in several “arenas” (transnational, national, local), where ideas of diverse nature (cognitive or normative, background and foreground) are articulated and transformed through discursive activities, either “communicative” or “coordinative.” They point to the differences in ideas conveyed by different “discursive coalitions” that will generate the particularity of Swedish curriculum policy, combining an emphasis on subject-​based knowledge and the preparation of students for global competition. A political paradigm shift is also invoked by Metha to explain the changes in institutional governance arrangements in the United States between 1980 and 2001, notably the introduction of federal control over schooling and accountability for performance (Mehta, 2013). Ideas, embedded in policies or more diffuse in institutional fields, do not, however, remain inert in their appropriation by local actors, at the school and classroom level. Wahlström and Sundberg (2018) emphasize the notion of “recontextualization” of ideas from one arena to another, a notion taken from Bernstein and “curriculum theory.” Other works identify dynamics between several scales of analysis, in terms either of “sensemaking” or of “translations” of ideas and institutional arrangements. Thus, Burch et al. (2018) seek to build “a stronger conceptual bridge between macro level theories of new institutionalism (e.g., organizational fields, isomorphism) and more micro theories such as sensemaking” (Burch & Miglani, 2018, p. 3). They discuss the role of actors (companies, government) in the “Ed Tech movement” in India and thematize the tensions and influences of a private company on the “sensemaking” of educational technology uses, at the level of schools and teachers in the classroom. Similarly, drawing on the sociology of translation (Callon, 1986) and micro-​institutionalist theories of sensemaking, Maroy et al. (2012) seek to understand the processes of translation and differentiated appropriation of the discourses and tools associated with policies promoting standardized external evaluations in primary schools in French-​speaking Belgium.

Entrepreneurs and Mechanisms of Institutional Change in the Policy Process In this strand, the processes of change and institutional construction (associated with or constitutive of educational globalization) are analyzed through the discursive formation or implementation of policies. The constructs proceed from ideas and discourses,

New Institutionalisms and the Political Dimension    161 carriers of transformation, thematized in terms either of “recontextualization,” “sensemaking,” or “translation.” The notions of “bricolage” and “translation” formalized by John Campbell (Campbell, 2004) are thus taken up by several works to underline the mechanisms of transformation/​diffusion of institutions, whether they are thematized as “ideas” (paradigms or programmes) or as regulatory and technical devices (Hsieh, 2016; Hsieh & Huisman, 2017). Maroy and Vaillancourt thus question the regulatory tools and devices that results-​based management policy puts in place in Quebec schools. Based on pragmatic sociology (Boltanski, 2008), they show that instrumental devices accentuate control over teaching work through reality tests, while the theatrical staging of statistical results and improvement plans works on organizational myths and the definition of the organization’s identity, during rituals that are so many truth tests (Maroy & Vaillancourt, 2019). Alongside these mechanisms of change, the place and status given to actors in these processes of institutional construction and change in relation to globalization must also be emphasized. Far from being reduced to mere agents, enacting scripts, or “carrier” organizations of these scripts, actors are seen as simultaneously constrained by institutions and capable of creating and changing them (Schmidt, 2008). They can be direct promoters of public policies (governments, local authorities) (Hsieh, 2016), members of “discursive coalitions” generating ideas structuring policies (politicians, transnational actors, private firms) (Hsieh & Huisman, 2017), or actors accompanying the (cognitive or practical) implementation of reforms or policy tools (inspectorate and intermediary school authorities) (Maroy et al., 2012; Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018). In addition, it is important to point out the presence of organizational actors from the private sector (Burch & Miglani, 2018). In the field of university education, McClure highlights the role of “managing consulting firms” that influence the reforms carried out by American universities through the “frames” and “ideas” they circulate in their interventions (McClure, 2017). In the Francophone context, Dahan et al. (2016) show symmetrically, within the communication services of universities, the difficulty of their identity work and their dependence on externally imposed identity categories.

A Theoretical Plurality In this third strand, the theoretical frameworks articulate concepts of plural origins, either by combining different NIs with one another, or by combining NI concepts with other theoretical framings: actor-​structure theory (Schwinn, 2012), theory of academic capitalism (McClure, 2017), curriculum theory (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018), actor-​network theory (Maroy et al., 2012), and pragmatic sociology, among others. This contrasts with the more linear and hypodeductive development of the WCT research program. The analyses of the links among institutions, policies, and globalization developed in this stream certainly highlight an empirical globalization of the education sector, in the sense that interdependencies between national and regional systems are increasing, or

162    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons that supranational private or public logics, standards, or actors are becoming more important. Moreover, the various empirical paths and forms of globalization are apparent in these works. However, this polymorphic globalization is not theorized as such, and these middle-​ range theorizations lack a structured and integrative theoretical framework. The scope of these works is mainly to show the insufficiencies or the limits of the available theorizations, notably in the neoinstitutionalist galaxy. Their originality lies in showing the impact of the configurations of national, transnational, and often subnational actors that influence the meaning and direction of the theory. It is also to point out the heuristic fruitfulness of attending to the political processes of creation or of institutional changes, constitutive of these plural globalizations. In other words, globalization in its phenomenal diversity cannot be explained solely by macro-​sociological theories, whether they be neoinstitutionalist (WCT), neo-​Marxist (Dale, 2000; Dale & Robertson, 2002), or more broadly critical (Carney et al., 2012; Silova & Brehm, 2015; Sobe, 2015). In contrast, the diversity of globalization is not subsumed by the sole factors of inertia or resistance to global cultural or political trends thematized by historical NI (cf. the second research strand).

Conclusion This literature review clearly invites us not to overhomogenize neoinstitutionalist work on the globalization of educational policies. It shows that there are three ways to consider the role of the political dimension in the nature of institutions and institutional change involved in the globalization of education. The WCT perspective highlights the emergence of a world polity/​society, emphasizes institutional diffusion mechanisms, and assigns a minor role to politics. The second one focuses on institutional mediations. Often (but not only) anchored in historical NI, it gives a central role to the policy dimension, but mainly from a “reception” paradigm. The last way, more hybrid (because it often relies on middle-​range theories), has as its common point stress on the institutionalization dynamics and institutional work at the intersection of multilevel/​multiscalar dimensions. If we were to model these three approaches, we would present them in three conceptual pairs: convergence and isomorphisms (strand 1), divergence and mediations (strand 2), and emergence and reconfigurations (strand 3). These three research strands all involve different visions of globalization, its political dimension, and institutions. These strands are synthesized in Table 6.1. They show that the landscape of approaches labeled as neoinstitutionalist has become progressively more complex. A constructivist theory of globalization, leaving little room for the political question, has been increasingly challenged empirically by a current of analysis that emphasizes much more the importance of domestic policy processes and their local institutional or cultural anchors, but does so by making globalization a general institutional environment that is not really conceptualized. Finally, the third

Isomorphism, enactment (of identities, scripts), decoupling

Existence/​influence of a world society, between world culture and world polity

Cultural globalization (set of rationalized myths, scripts, and worldviews)

Strand 1: Convergence/​Isomorphisms

Long term Cognitive and normative mechanisms

Temporality of change

Main factors of change

Little present

Little present

Politics

Policy

Stateless world polity composed of international organizations and professional organizations

Strong presence in analysis

Mimetic, osmosis

Vision of institutional change

Polity

Sociological

Preferred type of NI

Role of NI in thinking about Major globalization

Related concepts

Conceptualization of globalization

NI, neoinstitutionalism.

Dimension 3: Political Question

Dimension 2: Institutions

Dimension 1: Globalization

Table 6.1 Research Strands

Strong presence. Policy matters. (Instruments, bricolage, translation)

Unevenly present. Struggles between institutional actors located

Unevenly present in the analysis Recomposition of education policy models

Mechanisms, actors, instruments

Medium term

Path dependency plus gradual changes plus instrumentation

Sociological and historical

Minor

Transnational doctrines, rankings

General environment as a source of institutional pressure

Strand 2: Divergence/​Mediations

Strong presence (sensemaking, paradigms, discursive coalitions, arenas)

Strong presence. Importance of translation and deliberation processes

Weak presence in the analysis

Discourses and ideas, linked to actors (entrepreneurs) and instruments

Short term

Permanent (de-​)institutionalizations

Pluralist approaches to institutionalization

Minor

Transnational doctrines, rankings

No real conceptualization

Strand 3: Emergence/​ Reconfigurations

164    Christian Maroy and Xavier Pons strand also strongly emphasizes the political struggles at work on several scales but that have difficulty in thinking about globalization in a theoretical and integrated way, in the diversity of its empirical paths and in the articulation of the processes and scales involved. Therefore, we wish to stress in conclusion the need to develop this last point further. We argue it would be important in future theoretical developments to engage in a stronger dialogue with other theories of cultural globalization than WCT, whether this globalization is understood as a compression of time and space or through specific notions such as those of hybridization or creolization. Among these theories, the theory of vernacular globalizations developed by Arjun Appadurai (1996) and then introduced into the field of education by Bob Lingard (2006) seems to be a particularly fruitful perspective. By insisting on the role of cultural contexts that are more or less generative of specific globalized practices, it can be articulated particularly well with works from strands 2 and 3. Our research on accountability policies has indeed shown the interest of NI not only in thinking about long institutional trajectories (whether they be of policies, organizations, or school systems as a whole), and conceptually equipping the multiple inflection or translation modalities of these trajectories, but also in theoretically grasping contexts that are more or less generative of specific practices (Maroy et al., 2017). Tools of NI that have currently minor status, such as institutional orders or institutional configurations, could be very relevant for capturing the weight of these contexts and determining whether they give rise to vernacular globalizations, and the forms they take.

Notes 1. “The claims of actorhood are rewarding, exorbitant and utterly unrealistic. Under elaborate, standardized and very general rules, actors are thought to have clear purposes, means-​ ends technologies and analysed resources. They are to have unified decision sovereignty, effective control of their internal activities and clearly defined boundaries. They are to have complete and accurate analyses of their environments. They are, in short, to be little gods” (Meyer, 2000, p. 237). 2. Some references (n =​4) have been classified under both strands 2 and 3.

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chapter 7

Gl obaliz ation, C u lt u ra l L o gics, and th e T e ac h i ng Profes si on Gerald K. LeTendre

Introduction Concerns about the teacher’s role—​what should the teacher do and how critical is that work—​have come to occupy the attention of transnational organizations (OECD, 2005; UNESCO, 2006), national governments (Akiba, 2013), and academics (Paine & Zeichner, 2012; Robertson, 2000). While neoinstitutionalist theory offered a powerful explanatory framework for understanding the genesis and relationship of mass schooling to the rise of modern nation state (Boli et al., 1985), it offered little analysis of the role that teachers played in the rise of mass schooling. In order to understand the ongoing patterns of national differences and global similarities in teachers’ work (Kim, 2019; LeTendre et al., 2001) theorists needed to account for micro-​and meso-​ levels of interaction. Subsequent theoretical traditions (world society and world polity) emerged and emphasized the mimetic and normative diffusion of universalistic cultural scripts (Buhari-​Gulmez, 2010), but unraveling how globalization has affected the role of teachers within mass schooling and the nation state requires theoretical mechanisms that can account for the role that teachers play in institutional change (Niemi et al., 2018). World culture theorists (e.g., Baker & LeTendre, 2005) accepted the neoinstitutional perspective that “institutions constrain human action; scripts, norms, and rules concatenate to form cultural logics” (Rao & Giorgi, 2006, pp. 269–​270), but they sought to better understand the processes that create persistent national differences in classroom practices and school routines. The idea that teachers (as individuals or groups) might resist or modify the institutional rules or “rational myths” that undergird the organization of mass schooling aligned world culture theorists with scholars who took an anthropological or culturalist perspective on globalization (Anderson-​Levitt, 2003). Understanding how teachers are affected by globalization, and what role they play in the

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    171 process of institutional change required theoretical elaboration of (a) the relationship between culture and institutions; (b) the “institutional work” (Suddaby, 2010) teachers do to transmit or disrupt institutional patterns (Thornton et al., 2012); and (c) how “institutional logics” may conflict or align with broader cultural systems of meaning, that is, “cultural logics.” Elaborating these three points is made difficult because theorists have often used the terms “culture” and “institution” almost interchangeably (see arguments in Alesina & Giuliano, 2015). Many, like Guiso et al. (2015), follow North (1991) in differentiating between “informal institutions” (taboos, customs) and “formal institutions” (those with some legal standing). The problem with such a dichotomy is that our thinking is structured by both cultural and institutional logics as Douglas (1986) discussed. Furthermore, as Colyvas and Jonsson (2011) demonstrate, sociologists have defined institutionalization both as a process of “integration . . . into a social order without substantial recurrent mobilization” (e.g., “taken-​for-​grantedness”) as well as the ability to “sanction or enforce it, such as law or government policy” (e.g., “legitimization”). This adds to the difficulty in separating out “cultural” from “institutional” effects. Finally, the culture of most national societies has been shaped by the profusion of organizational forms (Scott, 1995) and thus imbued with the “packets of meaning” that organizational forms transmit (Berger et al., 1974). In the subsequent sections of this chapter, I will work to further define cultural and institutional logics and clarify how they interact by first reviewing how research on teacher work roles raised awareness of the fact that both nation-​specific cultural logics and the institutional logics of mass schooling appear to define these roles. Such work also identified the need for a theory of teachers themselves as agents of institutional change. In the second section, I propose that further theoretical mechanisms (resonance and elaboration) are required to explain how actors on the local and national levels incorporate both institutional and cultural logics into their sense-​making (see Akiba, 2017, for a discussion of sense-​making and national reform). In the third section, I demonstrate that clearly differentiating between the concepts of “legitimacy” and “taken-​for-​grantedness” highlights how teachers (as individuals or groups) or other actors utilize dissonance between cultural and institutional logics to create change. In the conclusion, I note that the dramatic expansion of information and communication technologies will generate more diverse and highly elaborated cultural logics that can be rapidly disseminated in an increasingly interconnected world.

Teachers as Agents of Institutional Change or Stability There has been little research on the role that teachers played in either the institutionalization of mass schooling, its persistence, or the deinstitutionalization of specific forms of schooling (e.g., segregated schools in the United States). Historical research on the earliest stages of globalization suggests that the diffusion of the “new” institution of

172   Gerald K. LeTendre mass schooling involved considerable borrowing and adaptation consistent with a process of pervasive cultural adaption of organizational forms (Lincicome, 1995) as well as a far greater role for coercive (e.g., military) force (Tsurumi, 1977). Thus, by the end of World War II, there was more cross-​national variation in the status of teachers as a mass profession than was later identified in classic works on semi-​professions (Etzioni, 1969; Lortie, 1975) that focused only on the United States.

Mass Education, Teachers, and the Nation State The lack of theorizing about teachers in various neoinstitutional strands reflects the mindset of the times, particularly within sociological circles. Like Etzioni (1969) or Lortie (1969), theorists understood globalization as a supranational process and teachers as essentially hired workers within national institutions. In Meyer’s seminal essay on the effects of education as an institution (Meyer, 1977), he did not define a role for teachers (or administrators) in either altering or elaborating the “taken-​for-​granted” rationales of schooling. Rather, he located agentic force at the institutional level (e.g., the transnational institutions of mass schooling and the nation state legitimate the status of teachers and other professionals). Further expansion of this theory moved beyond the idea of mass schooling as an exogenous global model, to positing “education as a primary, culture constructing institution” (Baker, 2014, p. 13). In other words, school as its own “self-​referencing” (Mangez et al., 2017) system is given a more dynamic role in the ongoing process of cultural production in world culture theory. Because teachers were largely ignored in early neoinstitutional work, their relationship to the state was also ignored, and the status or actorhood of teachers was not fully articulated. As national systems of education developed, particularly in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the institutional logic of mass schooling in many states was founded on the idea of enculturation of future citizens. The focus on human rights (Meyer et al., 2010) arose later and is most clearly seen in nations with post–​World War II constitutions. Even later, the idea of national citizens who participate in a global world as “global citizens” emerged (Kamens, 2012), but never effectively disseminated and continues to be most prevalent in unstable national states. In Japan, the teacher’s status as a civil servant carrying out the state’s authority to assure the enculturation of future citizens was established early in the modern era, and Japanese teachers have exhibited an ability to alter school reforms not seen in nations that weakly developed these institutional logics (Lincicome, 1995; Schoppa, 1991; Thurston, 1973).

National Differences as Variation in Cultural Logics This gives us our first key insight: National differences are not simply localized accommodations legitimated by an external world society as seen in world society theory; that is, “locals of the modern world become relatively standardized variants of

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    173 locals everywhere else” (Drori & Krucken, 2009, p. 267). This can be seen in Japan—​ “The rapid implementation of a national school system not only eliminated many . . . traditional forms of learning and teaching but also subordinated those that survived” (Rohlen & LeTendre 1995, p. 12). Although subordinated to the dominant institutional logic of mass schooling within Japan (and likely other nations, see the case of Amish schooling in the United States; Hostetler & Huntington, 1992), multiple alternative “logics” continued to exist. Institutions like the family are also differently constructed in different national contexts, raising the issue of conflict between cultural and institutional logics of child-​rearing and teaching in the early years of the child’s life (Tobin et al., 1989). This “cultural pluralization of the world” (Friedman, 1988) is part of a global cultural dynamic where national school systems become sites of cultural production, enjoining us to understand what role teachers play in that process. The subsequent debates about the effects of national, regional, or local cultures (“national culture”) and transnational or globally shared cultures (“world culture”) increasingly came to focus on what teachers do in their classrooms, not on national curriculum guidelines or plans. This has raised many points of disagreement about how transnational organizational actors affect what goes on in classrooms around the world. Attempts to understand how national differences persist in the face of global transformation processes have increasingly used data about teachers (Baker & LeTendre, 2005; LeTendre, Baker et al., 2001) or classroom instruction (Desimone, Smith et al., 2005) to assess the presence or absence of change. But, to account for teachers and their impact in the transnational flows of information and reform, scholars in world culture traditions have had to contend directly with how global and local forces might simultaneously affect instructional practice.

National Cultures of Teaching Part of what drove an increasing awareness of national cultures that defied transnational isomorphism were influential cross-​national studies from culturalist and anthropological traditions. Tobin et al. (1989) showed profound differences in teachers’ work as well as in general attitudes toward child development in nations which had already seen significant isomorphic convergence in terms of school organization, curriculum, and other aspects. This work was supported by studies that showed profound differences in individual identity development in nations like Japan (Shimizu & Levine, 2001). Finally, the influential TIMSS video studies (Hiebert et al., 2005; Stigler et al., 2000) demonstrated that even when teaching the exact same mathematics lesson, teachers in different nations approached the task in radically different ways that were easily recognizable as consistent with national patterns. Cross-​national studies in the anthropological tradition had long posited that national cultures of schooling are sustained by the day-​to-​day actions of teachers (Anderson-​ Levitt, 1987; Spindler, 1987; Stevenson et al., 1978; Tobin et al., 1989). These anthropological theories adopted a “bottom-​up” approach to institutionalization in which national

174   Gerald K. LeTendre patterns of instruction are constantly being shaped by the actions of students and teachers in school. Such theories emphasized the cultural stability of institutions over long periods of time but gave significant emphasis to interactions between micro-​and meso-​levels on influencing national cultures of teaching. A full-​fledged theory of how national cultures of teaching and learning created national differences in cognitive and academic outcomes among students (Stevenson & Stigler, 1992) was later extended to theories of effective teaching (Stigler & Hiebert, 1998, 1999). Stigler explicitly connected cultural patterns to efficacious teaching (Stigler & Stevenson, 1991). In their eponymous work, Stigler and Hiebert state not only that “teaching is a cultural activity” but one that has significant, lasting effects on students in a globalized world.

Actors, Levels, and Institutional Logics Understanding the role that teachers play in the global diffusion of educational reforms requires a theory of cultural change at multiple levels. However, while conceptually useful, theories of macro-​versus micro-​levels oversimplify how the process of change occurs. As Thorton et al. (2012) noted, “individuals and organizations, if only subliminally, are aware of the differences in the cultural norms, symbols, and practices of different institutional orders and incorporate this diversity into their thoughts, beliefs, and decision making” (p. 4). Individuals interact at the micro-​level, but their organizational frame of action may range from the local to the transnational. Individuals carry the cultural accounts and explanation of what the institution does and why (Spindler, 1977), and their frames of experience affect the account of the rationality that actors may use to interpret experiences within the frame of prevailing institutional logics at the level at which the organization has effects. Drawing on Cuban’s theory of the situationally constrained choices that teachers make, Gardiner (2011) emphasizes that teachers are “situated actors whose particular knowledge and expertise enable them to serve as both agents of change and stakeholders of continuity,” at least in terms of local schools. Cultural change often occurs when new logics are introduced. Swidler (1986) noted that in times of social upheaval, cultural symbols become open to reuse and reinterpretation. The presentation of new institutional logics, in the form of globally diffusing reforms, may initiate such scenarios for teachers in some nations. To address adequately how some routines are learned by some organizations and not by others requires a theory about how actors within organizations organize meaning by adapting or modifying institutional logics. This means that institutional logics may be shaped, over time, by the frames of experience of individual actors, but the actions of teachers will likely be limited to the organization of the local school they work in. Individual frames of experience are structured by institutional roles, but actors have the potential to play many roles and experience many frames of experience. Every individual engages in some process of sense-​making, and it follows that the greater number of frames an individual experiences, the wider the range of interpretations

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    175 that individual is open to, and the greater their capacity to interpret or imagine new scenarios. Teachers who have experienced a range of different cultural logics in their local environment may then be motivated, as actors within the institution of mass schooling, to ignore, revise, or even reject the dominant institutional logics of mass schooling: “glocalization is indeed a multilayered process that involves the discussion, adoption, and adaptation processes between global and local levels” (Astiz & Akiba, 2016, p. 3).

Cultural Logics and Institutional Change Both neoinstitutional and national cultural models rely on static notions of culture that fail to capture the complexity of how culture and institutional logics affect teachers. Drori et al. (2006) noted that “cultural materials accumulate and are institutionalized at the global level over time” (p. 259). Stigler and Hiebert (1999) suggested that teachers are following “national scripts” for teaching which are part of “national cultures.” An alternative, and more dynamic model, has been proposed by Anderson-​Levitt (2003, pp. 12–​13; see Chapter 2 in this volume), who borrowed the Spindler’s concept of “cultural dialog” (Spindler & Spindler, 1990). The concept of a “dialog” emphasizes ongoing interaction and change. It can account for the fact that individuals may often have experience with multiple cultural or institutional logics of education and learning. As Akiba indicates, the idea of interaction between levels needs to be conceived as a “multilayered process” which recognizes the heterogeneity that exists within each level. At the local level, teachers must reconcile the cultural logics (the values, norms, and expectations for teachers and students) of their local communities with the institutional logic of mass schooling. Indeed, there is strong evidence that there are multiple cultural logics at play at the transnational level (Fraser & Ikoma, 2015). The institutional logic of mass schooling has itself grown more complex over time, allowing new patterns of actorhood for teachers to be institutionalized. Modernity brings complexity to every “level,” and this affects the level of institutionalization of organizational forms at multiple “levels.”

Institutional Change Is Cultural Change Neoinstitutional theory, in the 1990s, had reached a point of “theoretical gridlock” with regard to hypotheses about how institutional change occurs. Virtually all the important conceptual work on institutional change focused on the process of institutionalization—​ how things come to be institutions. Zucker (1977) correctly identified this as a theory of cultural persistence. Both Zucker (1983) and Jepperson (1991) conceptualized

176   Gerald K. LeTendre institutionalization as one way that social patterns of behavior remain stable across time. Implicit in this formulation is that everyday actions are reenactments of cognitively normative forces which would result in no possibility of change. But as we have seen, culturalist studies indicate that individuals negotiate these logics on a daily basis. Swidler’s work (1986) on publicly available meanings showed that there is the possibility for individuals to question, contest, or reinterpret these meanings. Studies of teachers in the Global South suggest persistent, ongoing change perhaps because these teachers have indigenous “publicly available meanings” to draw on (Anderson-​Levitt, 2004; Gardiner, 2011; Shinn, 2012). The difference between “institutional logics” and “cultural logics” is not bounded by a clear line. As organizational forms, institutions like the school have highly codified dimensions, for example, “classifications often controlled by the state and enforced in daily life by rules about credentials written into law” (Meyer, 1977, p. 65). Organizations exist within the larger sphere of cultural interactions and expectations which includes “institutions” like “childhood,” “individual,” “lifecourse,” or even “adolescence” (Aries, 1962; LeTendre, 2000; Mintz, 2004; Shanahan, 2000). Such institutions may vary in the degree they are codified in policies, laws, court decisions, and so on, but all have “taken-​ for-​granted” meanings widely recognized within the population. Neoinstitutionalist studies (e.g., Boli & Meyer, 1978) focused on the codification of childhood in legal, policy, or treaty agreements while culturalist studies like Tobin et al. (1989) looked at the publicly shared meanings of childhood exemplified in everyday life. We can theoretically disaggregate legitimacy and taken-​for-​grantedness, but both aspects play a significant role in the cultural persistence of childhood and hence national differences in how schooling for children is constructed. One form of institutional change results when cultural logics become codified into the existing universe of publicly available meanings within a given society. This process is different from change produced by exogenous shocks or long-​term “institutional drift” that occurs when core institutional rationales and processes are kept intact, but significant change occurs in non-​core processes (see Graf, Chapter 3, this volume). The reorganization of meaning over time occurs as individuals have experienced conflict among the institutional and cultural logics they encounter in daily life. A major way that globalization induces institutional change “is by interrupting ‘thinking as usual’—​the taken-​for granted understandings and worldviews that shape cognitive and metacognitive styles and practices” (Suarez-​Orozco & Qin-​Hilliard, 2004, p. 4). As transglobal educational reforms—​based on rationalized beliefs about human capital development and individual rights rooted in Western European Christianity and capitalism—​spread over the globe, they did indeed supplant premodern national school systems (Rohlen & LeTendre, 1995) creating significant uniformity in basic school processes and school structures. But at the same time older logics did not disappear completely. Religious systems of education—​Madrassah, Yeshiva, and Buddhist monastic systems—​still play a major role in many nations. Baker (2014) has speculated that one effect of mass schooling is that it may actually stimulate a revival of religiosity, a potential source of new logics for schooling (e.g., homeschooling).

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    177 The remnants or premodern educational institutions are not the only source of alternative cultural logics. Stein (2004) showed that with each new policy that governments implement comes the potential for the generation of new public meanings: “through the myriad interpretations of policy makers, policy implementers, policy target populations and policy analysts” (p. 6). Actors at local and regional levels within nations interpret policies in various ways, with substantial variation in how policies get enacted in the day-​to-​day operation of the school. Enactment and adaptations of new policies can even create new classes of actors that must then be accommodated within the institutional logic of the school (see Stein, 2004, for a discussion of “paraprofessionals”). Globalization has also allowed new models to be developed and spread. For example, Maguire (2002), Bartlett (2003), and Tarlau (2019) examined the conflict between national policies and alternative models of teacher practice and education informed by Freirean philosophy. Political parties may also engage in active “borrowing” of cultural logics to promote national reforms (Takayama & Apple, 2008). This highlights the fact that multiple logics are available at each level. It is not simply that “at the local level, teachers . . . adopt, mediate, resist or reject reforms” based on local cultural logics (Napier, 2003, p. 64). At the national level, reformers and policymakers may be dealing with conflicting institutional logics of educational reform that are globally diffusing. The overall isomorphic process observed during the rise and growth of mass schooling has evolved into a world cultural dynamic where multiple models of schooling and educational reform compete for attention. In such a dynamic environment, actors must make sense of logics that may conflict with, or resonant well with, one another.

Key Mechanism: Resonance Globally diffusing models may not resonate with local cultural logics. In my work on the diffusion of adolescence, I used the metaphor of competing “storylines” to show how teachers adopted different rationalized myths about adolescence in Japan compared to the United States (LeTendre, 2000). Stark and Spreen (2020) use the concept of “global resonance” to account for how the GERM model is globally diffusing. This suggests that original theories of diffusion of change in organizational fields (Dimaggio & Powell, 1983) missed a key facet of institutional change: whether or not there is resonance with existing cultural logics or whether there may be different institutional logics at play. Early formulations of institutional isomorphism were developed at a time when the concept of institutional fields was underdeveloped. As institutional fields become more elaborated—​more populated with multiple logics—​it is more likely for new forms to emerge. A similar concept emerges in the work of Bridwell-​Mitchell (2020) on the micro-​level processes of US school reform. She advances the theory of “institutional interstitiality” “defined as the cognitive state in which two alternative possible realities are juxtaposed in ways that disrupt institutionalized beliefs and practices” (p. 432). What occurs then is the opposite of resonance. The discordance between institutional logics works to make

178   Gerald K. LeTendre “accepted reality less durable,” thus opening up the way to replacing or altering existing institutional logics. In his paper on global convergence and national variation, Kim (2019) found long-​ term evidence of cross-​national convergence in teaching practice, but in some respects within-​nation variation actually increased over time. He shows that an increase in within-​nation variation may be characteristic in the early stages of adoption, but he then goes on to speculate that future studies should “examine why the globally preferred pedagogical model does not resonate well in countries with centralized curriculum” (p. 371). This raises the interesting point that as a new educational reform enters a nation, it may undergo elaboration, but those key rational myths or storylines must find some resonance or similarity with existing cultural logics. Teacher and policymaker engagement in a sense-​making process is likely to drive adaptation (Akiba, 2017) in ways similar to the “creolization” theory proposed in Anderson-​Levitt (2003).

Key Mechanism: Power to Communicate and Define Actors are provided with opportunities to change institutional logics when the institutional logics are in conflict with prevailing widespread cultural beliefs (in the case of adolescence mentioned earlier, see LeTendre, 2000) or when they can create new logics (Aurini, 2012). Institutions exist in a larger milieu of cultural beliefs or “social rationales or accounts” to use Jepperson’s terms, but individuals vary enormously in their power to emphasize certain rationales (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005). “There is a growing awareness that the manipulation of institutional logics is a fundamental mechanism of institutional change” (Green, 2004, p. 62). That is, to understand how the institution of school changes (or stays the same) as globalization progresses requires a theory of power to disseminate new visions or undercut old ones. To adequately account for how institutional logics diffuse in a time of intense globalization requires a theoretical mechanism that accounts for differential power in disseminating beliefs. As Koyama (2013) showed, individuals exhibit different capabilities to marshal resources to communicate their beliefs. In the case of national policy debates, we see that sustained and coordinated communication (largely through the mass media) have indeed shaped public perception of the taken-​for-​granted functioning of public schooling (Berliner, 1992; Berliner & Biddle, 1995; Takayama, 2007). And, as Takayama (2007) further shows, this can result in formal policy changes (e.g., delegitimizing the institutional or actorhood within institutions). There is a clear element of power involved, and that power is defined by an organization or individual’s ability to continually disseminate accounts that question the taken-​ for-​ granted assumptions we have about schooling. The power of communication is ultimately tied to historically conditioned factors that affect teachers’ ability to mobilize as national collectives. For example, Kim (2019, p. 357) found that “countries with centralised control of curriculum tended to buffer the global drift toward student-​centered instruction, instead maintaining lecture-​oriented

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    179 classrooms and teacher control over instructional activities.” National ministries, then, can affect the ability of teachers as individuals, or as collectives, to mobilize for change. Schoppa (1991) showed how Japan’s national educational ministry engaged in “immobilist policies” subsequent to decades of remarkable collective activism by teachers (see also Duke, 1973). The delegation of educational powers to the states in the United States has resulted in a de facto system of 50 independent systems, and this focuses union attention on state-​level policies (Earley et al., 2011) and exemplifies how extreme decentralization can also work to inhibit the efficacy of teacher collective action for institutional change.

Global Diffusion of Institutional Logics Across Multiple Levels The concept of a “world society,” first articulated in the 1980s (see Hufner, Meyer et al., 1987), is actually a theory of globalization which was subsequently elaborated (Drori et al., 2006; Meyer, 2007) to emphasize the “embeddedness” of local organizations and actors in the world society. This perspective, in some ways, conflates the cognitive and normative aspects of how institutions are sustained. In a world where actors have increasing access to multiple cultural logics, it is critical to distinguish between legitimacy as normative pressure residing in laws, treaties, and court decisions and the “taken-​for-​granted” status that allows certain logics to be routinely enacted by teachers in classrooms around the world. But, in focusing on differences between levels (e.g., micro, meso, and macro), both theories of a world culture, on one hand, and culturalist theories, on the other, artificially reify the difference between global, national, regional, and local levels. All of these “levels” are interrelated and probably better conceptualized as continua or at least interpenetrating spheres (see Appadurai, 2010). Regarding teachers, Akiba (2017) states that “global dynamics” are actually constituted by an ongoing “collective sense-​making” that involves contestation and negation with and across levels. Cultural and institutional logics are being reproduced or altered at all levels. Individuals, from teachers at a local level to ministers of education at a national or transnational level, are all engaged in the cultural “work” of collective sense-​making and bring to it their individual frames of experience.

Micro-​Processes Across Levels: Frames of Experience Jepperson (1991) emphasizes that institutions are reproduced in distinct ways from other social phenomena, and that we have cultural accounts for certain organizations or behaviors, ranging from handshakes to hospitals. Douglas, in her seminal work, argued

180   Gerald K. LeTendre that institutions organize the categories of our thinking. For Douglas (1986), institutions are used in basic analogies to identify the pertinent features of the world and to set up the rules of rationality and causality. How then are these accounts of the world changed? To understand how institutions change, one must have a theory of the everyday experience of actors within the institution, what Aurini (2012) calls the “inhabited institution,” and how individual sense-​making and action affect the broader organization and thus the institutional form of the organization. Early insight into how individual frames of experience within organizations resulted in organizational learning can offer some key insights. While institutions cannot learn in an intentional sense, individual frames of experience act as filters for institutions limiting what information gets interpreted, how it is interpreted, and how it is finally institutionalized. Here is where individuals and their frames of experience come into play. Rao and Giorgi (2006) wrote about “institutional entrepreneurs,” certain individuals whose frames of experience allow them both the “ability to imagine an alternative” and the “latitude to get away with a framing of a problem and its attendant solution.” (p. 273). These entrepreneurs do more than just “break” or subvert the rules of the institution; they use the cultural logics within and without the institution to shift others’ frames of experience and begin to institutionalize new patterns or logics. But, as Powell and Colyvas (2012) point out, too much emphasis may be placed on these change agents. Following Hedberg (1981), one can conceptualize organizational learning (e.g., organizational change) as a process of integrating new information based on the frames of experience of individual members, like teachers. “These local influences may bubble up and threaten or replace macro-​level coherence” (Powell & Colyvas, 2012, p. 278). Similarly, Levitt and March (1988) postulates a slow model of instructional change wherein organizations learn as individuals code inferences from history into routines that guide their behavior. Teachers or administrators in any given school come with their individual frames of experience and can exert influence over the individual organization of school, including what new procedures or rules become integrated into the existing logics of the organization. However, as Dimaggio and Powell (1983) pointed out, globalization has created significant isomorphism within many organizational fields. Large sectors of the economy (e.g., banking, retail, or automotive manufacturing) have come to resemble each other transnationally (Storey et al., 1997), and this indicates a homogenization of the meanings associated with internal roles and functions of the individuals who work in these institutions. This means that it is increasingly difficult for teachers or individual schools to make swift and dramatic changes in the institutional logics that prevail. Globalization also brought repeated exogenous shocks to the institution of schooling (e.g., “PISA shock”; see Meyer & Benavot, 2013). What has been undertheorized is what happens when myriad individuals, across multiple organizations, reinterpret or subvert the logics of a new reform in similar ways. We have witnessed such widespread and direct challenges to the “taken-​for-​granted” status of schooling forms in the wake of a direct challenge to legitimacy (e.g., the rapid demise of legally segregated school following the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in the United States). What happens when

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    181 the logics of a globally diffusing reform are fundamentally at odds with broader cultural logics held by the mass of teachers (and parents or students for that matter)? In such a case, how do the new cultural logics both gain legitimacy and ultimately become taken for granted?

Depth of Institutionalization: Legitimacy and “Taken for Granted” The early modern phase of globalization saw the rapid diffusion of the institution of the individual, the nation state, and mass schooling, which were predicated on core beliefs that modern individuals have a unique sense of self, certain universal rights, and must give a rational account of their life history and trajectory. Such beliefs formed the core of institutional logics that informed the modern nation state and mass schooling. These logics clearly conflicted with older cultural logics, for example in Japan, where beliefs that the self exists partly in the individual and partly in the natural and social environment around the individual are still widespread (Hamaguchi, 1985; Hsu, 1985; Lebra, 1992). This deemphasis of the individual is consistent with Japanese beliefs in the fluidity or permeability of the self. These constructs are highly institutionalized within Japan and are often cited as critical to understanding the cultural differences between Japanese and Western society (Shimizu, 2000; Shimizu & Levine, 2001). How then to reconcile such conflicting logics without resorting to “decoupling” mechanisms as a means of explanation? Deephouse and Suchman (2008) suggest that “taken for granted” and “cognitive legitimacy” are often conflated. Legitimacy, in world society studies, is often measured by the presence of logics in formal documents (e.g., constitutions; see Boli & Meyer, 1978). Legal status provides a powerful legitimacy but does not necessitate “taken-​for-​granted” status. The key point is that “taken-​for-​granted” is a cultural marker (Deephouse & Suchman, 2008) for things that fade into the background—​patterns of action that we are so habituated to that we engage in them without active cognition. Exposure to a given organizational setting such as a school shifts individual expectations to what is taken for granted, or “just the way things are done,” but some individuals appear to have more power to challenge the assumed norms. In terms of actors and concepts of legitimacy, Meyer et al. (1983) noted that some professionals (e.g., lawyers) have a widespread perceived authority over “cultural theory.” However, Deephouse and Suchman (2008, pp. 54–​55) encouraged the use of more precise definitions in explaining “who has collective authority over legitimation in any given setting.” Here, we see that teachers in different nations, or at different points in national history, have markedly different legitimacy over the cultural theory of schooling. For example, within Japan, teacher organizations exhibited considerable influence on the legal structures of mass schooling (Duke, 1973), resulting in stalemates and blocking reforms (Schoppa, 1991). However, it is clear that this authority over

182   Gerald K. LeTendre cultural theory—​to redefine the cultural logics or provide legitimacy to specific logics—​ is not static. In the case of teachers it can ebb and flow (Takayama, 2007). Power to defy educational reforms is not the same as power to shape what is “taken for granted.” Institutionalization and diffusion are distinct processes (Colyvas & Jonsson, 2011). Even though patterns of schooling diffuse globally, adaptation of the institutional logics may well occur without those logics becoming highly taken for granted. “The depth of institutionalization depends on the extent to which objects and subjects become embedded in both higher-​and lower-​order frames, rules, and routines in a social setting. Links to only higher-​order modes of reproduction will result in thin or shallow forms of institutionalization because local patterns may persist independently from higher-​order structures” (p. 44). That is, they have not yet faded into the background as something assumed to be normal or expected in terms of teachers’ day-​to-​day interactions with students, peers, and administrators. The “higher-​order structures” of globally diffusing reforms may not affect “local patterns” of schooling, or perhaps even some national patterns of schooling. Of course, the disconnection between global or even national logics and individual organizational idiosyncrasies has been typically explained in terms of “loose coupling” (Weick, 1976). But as Dimmock and colleagues show, coupling is a complex phenomenon, and traditional formulations of tight and loose coupling fail to capture the complexity of school systems as well as a theoretical change mechanism (Dimmock et al., 2021). They emphasize the importance of actors within local organizations (e.g., “internal enablers”) in ways similar to (Rao & Giorgi, 2006) “institutional entrepreneurs.” Suddaby and Greenwood (2005) also note the importance of such actors, who play a critical role in determining what external practices and patterns become established, but also in whether or not these practices or patterns become widely established.

Elaboration of Institutional Logics Returning to a macro-​level perspective, globalization produces a profusion of cultural logics available to actors. These logics are not simply globally “sanctioned” local variations as in Ramirez et al. (2016), but rather nascent institutions that may undergo increasing elaboration of core rational myths as more policy, research, and implementation provide actors with multiple opportunities to elaborate new rational myths. In my own work, I documented how the institutionalized life-​course stage of adolescence in the United States and western Europe underwent extensive elaboration in the 1900s that did not occur in other nations (LeTendre, 2000). This process of elaboration appears linked to the ongoing adaptation, subversion, and other activities of local actors, policymakers, and academics. This process provided an increasingly diverse milieu of cultural logics that become available and could affect the process of institutional change. What is missing in many theoretical accounts of institutional logics is the mechanism of elaboration—​that institutional fields do not remain static over time but appear to become populated with increasingly elaborated narratives about the institution. Both

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    183 neoinstitutional and world society perspectives undertheorized the dynamic aspect of culture and the fact that, as Aurini (2012, p. 375) noted, “the organizational field of education is becoming more diverse.” That is, internal enablers or institutional entrepreneurs increasingly have wider and more diverse sets of cultural logics to draw upon over time. Globalization, then, is not an external process that influences culture, but part of the cultural dynamic produced and sustained by the myriad interpretations of individuals. The rise of powerful communication technologies and networks is required to sustain this process (Castells, 2004), allowing individuals the potential to become influential producers of cultural variation. However, individuals rarely rise to the status of heroic “entrepreneurs” of institutional change (Rao & Giorgi, 2006). This is the essential cultural dynamic of globalization in our age. We see the continual emergence and diffusion of new rationalized myths that both create common points of attention and elaboration as well as spur the creation of alternative interpretations and rational myths. The rationalized myth of education as essential to national economic survival in a globalized world is one example. National policymakers in the United States readily adopted the “logic” that better education equaled stronger economic performance (LeTendre, 1999) as it resonates with dominant logics of individualism, democracy, and private enterprise that are integrated into many globally diffusing reforms (Adamson et al., 2016). The “logic” of competition rationalizes narratives of “crisis” (Berliner & Biddle, 1995) and even becomes a mechanism of global governance (Robertson, 2012). Yet this elaboration also produces conflicts and counternarratives. Lack of empirical evidence to justify the view that education drives economic competitive strength (Ramirez et al., 2018) undermines the legitimacy of this logic. Alternative, critical formulations may advance new cultural logics (Ball, 2012) which create new institutional interstitialities (Bridwell-​Mitchell, 2020). In other words, the process of elaboration is self-​sustaining. The endless production of variants on cultural logics creates further possibilities for individual actors like teachers to see resonance or dissonance within their individual frames of experience and assures the continued production of new rational formulations in order to resolve dissonance between visions of what teachers should or should not do.

Conclusion: The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on the Global Diffusion of Cultural Logics It is undeniable that both homogenization and elaboration are critical processes in “modernity” or “globalization.” Benedict Anderson (1983) linked innovations in

184   Gerald K. LeTendre communications and media (the printed word) with the development of new national identities that both created a sense of homogenization (e.g., shared identity) and rapidly elaborated those identities. Globalization, as a process of dynamic cultural exchange via media, has made possible the rapid and continuous diffusion of cultural logics around the world. The expansion of information and communication technologies (ICT) has indeed created a “networked society” at the global level (Castells, 2004) and allowed teachers new ways of communicating and mobilizing (Baker-​Doyle, 2015). ICT allows individuals dramatically increased access to a storehouse of imagined possibilities and requires us, then, to reconsider the role of individuals in the process of institutional change. We need to incorporate our knowledge of individuals as agents of institutional change into a theory of institutional change that recognize the forces of elaboration and resonance of cultural logics and can differentiate between superficial and deep institutionalization of these logics.

Micro-​Processes, Sense-​Making, and Institutional Change We must account for the fact that actors “play” with the logics that are available to them in the world around them, “fighting over the very definition of reality” (Anderson-​ Levitt, 2003, p. 95). These actors are not simply peripheral to global diffusion; “they improvise, they perform, and they (re)make policy locally” (Koyama, 2013). And one tool at their disposal is their ability to “exploit the pre-​existing logic within the social system, or import a logic from a different domain” (Rao & Giorgi, 2006). For these actors—​ teachers, principals, or even engaged parents—​mismatches in the cultural logics (the elements of the rational myth) expose gaps or inconsistencies in what actions, behaviors and even what category of actors is consistent with the norms for the day-​to-​day operation of the organization. As actors engage in this bricolage of their cognitive worlds, they are informed by “preexisting beliefs, perceptions, and knowledge of the teaching and policy environments” (Akiba, 2017).

Bricolage of Meaning Conditioned by Power to Mobilize and Communicate National cultural models and world culture cannot be merged without understanding the mechanisms of hybridization (Anderson-​Levitt, 2003). “A truly hybrid theory would require that we recognize the local within the transnational. This means, first, acknowledging that local educators reshape global innovations as fast as they import them” (Anderson-​Levitt, 2003, p. 20). But this mechanism also needs to account for power—​the power to communicate but also the normative and cognitive dimensions of power. That is, a coherent, highly elaborated institutional logic of mass schooling did indeed rapidly reshape cultural logics in national societies around the world in the

Cultural Logics and the Teaching Profession    185 post–​World War II era. As time has progressed, the ability of transnational organizations to diffuse large-​scale educational reforms has increased, and thus resistance to, or bricolage of, diffusing institutional logics becomes highly difficult for teachers in many national societies (Gardiner, 2011; Shinn, 2012). We must consider then, under what conditions do teachers, individually and collectively, have the means to effectively advocate for a new “logic” of how things are to run? Suddaby and Greenwood (2005) suggest that use of language can be a powerful tool in shifting organizational logics. This requires the incorporation of power to communicate or to control the focus and frequency of messages being broadcast in the environment. On a national level, teacher organizations can mount media campaigns that highlight specific institutional logics (e.g., the demand for pay consistent with a professional status), but other groups may mobilize competing logics. In the sphere of public media, these rhetorical challenges to institutional logics often make use of contrast to or resonance with existing cultural logics. When or how teachers can actually change dominant cultural logics is limited by their access to communicative strategies that can deinstitutionalize certain norms and reinstitutionalize others. The ongoing development of new information and communication technologies can link hundreds of thousands of teachers across dozens of nations (e.g., eTwinning; see Blazic & Verswijvel, 2017). However, while such technologies allow the creation of dense, transnational networks of exchange between teachers, they also provide the nation state with manifold ways to enact surveillance of teachers (e.g., via classroom cameras and AI-​supported monitoring software). The pertinent question is whether teachers can, via collective action, assert control over how these technologies are to be used. At present, it seems unlikely that teachers will be able to achieve the national organizational capacity or professional status to act as agents of institutional change like other professions. But, as actors supported by broader social movements (e.g., the US civil rights movement), teachers may indeed play a significant role in reshaping educational systems through daily contestation of dominant logics and affirmation of new, alternative logics. On a day-​to-​day basis, the aggregate effect of teachers’ sense-​making will constitute a significant source of variation and dissonance in terms of the institutional logics of schooling but rarely become diffuse enough to alter the ongoing world cultural dynamic.

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chapter 8

Hig her Educat i on a nd Organiz ationa l T h e ory Systems, Fields, Markets, and Populations in an Increasingly Global Context Jeroen Huisman

Introduction This chapter focuses on how developments in organizational theory (revolving around key concepts such as organizational fields, systems, populations, isomorphism, and institutional logics) have affected the study of higher education. It is tempting to assume that theoretical ideas and concepts travel from the disciplines to the field of higher education. There is a compelling argument for this perspective. It is rooted in the idea that higher education is not a discipline in itself; it is “just” an object of study, in many respects comparable to police studies, sports studies, or urban studies. Tight has extensively explored the idea of higher education as a field of study versus a discipline. His early work on this theme argues that higher education researchers have—​for a long time—​constituted an a-​theorical community of scholars (Tight, 2004). More recently, he argued that there are arguments to see higher education developing into a discipline of its own (Tight, 2014, 2020). A further specification of the argument is that not only higher education is an object of study, but that the aims of scholars in this field are significantly geared toward problem-​solving. That is, real-​life problems in policy or practice are key motivators for higher education researchers to investigate higher education (Teichler, 2000). In embarking on these studies, researchers may use the methodological and theoretical toolkit of the social sciences, but not necessarily.

192   Jeroen Huisman Hence, this perspective argues that higher education researchers may be hesitant or slow to use theory.1 Hesitance may stem from the view that they think they can do without to reach their aim, that is, to solve a problem in practice, although—​following Lewin’s adage—​there is nothing as practical as a good theory. But hesitance (or uncertainty) may also be related to the multidisciplinary nature of higher education research, which implies that a researcher is not necessarily abreast of all the potentially useful theories/​concepts. Such considerations have led analysts to argue that higher education scholars have been slow to pick up insights from organizational studies (Cai & Mehari, 2015; see also Lepori, 2016, although more implicitly) or emphasized that organizational studies in higher education are problem-​oriented (Fumasoli & Stensaker, 2013). Paradeise and Thoenig (2013, p. 189) argued that “higher education and research institutions as organizations have remained for many years a rather unexplored topic” in organizational studies. Interestingly, some organizational scholars would argue the other way around. For instance, Washington and Ventresca (2004, p. 93) claim that “[t]‌he study of higher education organizations was central in the development of macro theories of organizations,” although they do not offer support for this claim. Also higher education scholars Elken and Vukasovic (2019) point at important organizational concepts being developed through the study of (higher) education, like loose coupling, myths and ceremonies, and garbage can decision-​making. It would take a separate in-​depth analysis to fully disentangle the influences of organizational theory on higher education research and vice-​versa. This contribution therefore focuses on one side of that story: early (or even avant la lettre, as will be shown later) or late adoption of organizational thinking—​around notions of fields, markets, and populations—​by higher education scholars. Another expectation might be that higher education researchers would closely follow the globalization literature because the two key activities in higher education (and possibly research more than teaching and learning) easily cross-​national boundaries. In other words, higher education would be a prime example of the opening of international borders and increasingly fast flows of services, people, and ideas, two elements that figure largely in definitions and theories of globalization. Remarkably, the debate on globalization and higher education only emerged in the second half of the 1990s and gained more ground in the new millennium. The structure of the contribution is as follows. First, I will address some characteristics of the community of higher education researchers. I then continue to organize my arguments around four key concepts in organizational theory: systems, fields, populations, and markets. I realize there are different ways to present the analysis, for example, chronologically, but I think centering the discussions around the notions of systems, fields, populations, and markets—​and, importantly, their conceptual and theoretical connotations and denotations—​serves the purpose. Moreover, by focusing particularly on fields and markets, I stay close to institutional strands in organizational theory. It also allows me to easily weave in the discourse on globalization and higher education. I then present a conclusion and reflection.

Higher Education and Organizational Theory    193

Higher Education Scholarship As in any other field studying social objects (e.g., health or social work), researchers have studied quite diverse elements of that object. Studies in higher education pay attention to teaching, learning, and assessment; to curriculum development; to the teaching and research profession(s); to higher education institutions (as organizations) and its management; and to systems of higher education. Cross-​cutting these themes are enduring challenges related to access, participation, equality, funding, quality, internationalization, and so on. An important corollary of this observation is that those focusing on micro-​level issues like student assessment are often hardly aware—​and it could be argued that they do not necessarily need to be aware—​of the work of those studying macro-​level national policy reforms. Even though social science disciplines also differ in terms of their theoretical and methodological coherence, what connects (sub)disciplinary scholars is that they—​by and large—​speak the same disciplinary language and build their work on that of its founding fathers and mothers. Instead, the large variety of subthemes has led higher education researchers to label their field as diverse (Macfarlane, 2012) or as highly specialized and fragmented (Daenekindt & Huisman, 2020). Within this highly diversified field, a substantial part of scholarly output focuses on teaching, learning, and assessment and to the student experience and student well-​ being (Tight, 2013), with much of this work being carried out by scholars in education studies, pedagogy, and psychology. A much smaller community focuses on the meso-​ level (higher education institutions as organizations) and macro-​level (higher education systems). The study of higher education is “special” in that researchers investigate their own world. In the early days of higher education research, this meant that basically anyone with some experience in higher education could write about the topic. It would not be uncommon for practitioners and leaders of higher education institutions to contribute to journals (less so in contemporary times, according to Macfarlane, 2012). Whether their insights were based on robust methodologies and solid theories or on limited personal (and biased) observations is a moot point. Clark (1984, pp. 4–​5) wryly comments that “[l]‌earned professors, studious and rigorous in their own fields, often discuss higher education without much preparation.” The fact that higher education researchers study their own field is often connected to an observation by many scholars that higher education research is of an a-​theoretical nature and geared toward practice and problem-​ solving (Teichler, 2005; Tight, 2014). It is therefore key to realize, first, that the share of higher education researchers that would potentially engage with organizational theories is relatively small. Obviously, those studying micro-​level teaching and learning processes can do without organizational theory. Second, scholars may not have been trained in disciplines that make much use of those theories (sociology, political science, business and management studies, economics), so it is also a matter of being acquainted with potentially relevant

194   Jeroen Huisman theories. Third, even if there is an interest among higher education scholars in organizational theory, their attentiveness may be quickly superseded by prioritizing the practical relevance of higher education research, even though much of organizational theory emerged exactly to deal with practical organizational problems.

Higher Education: The Prevalence for a System Approach In scholarly contributions focusing on higher education, the overwhelming majority of researchers would write about higher education as a system (or sometimes sector, although the latter term is often used for specific subsystems, e.g., the college sector). The term “field” is used much less frequently. A quick search on “higher education field” versus “higher education system” in titles of publications in the Web of Science database reveals 277 mentions for the former and 1,753 for the latter. The three key explanations for the very frequent use of “system” are pragmatics, the primacy of policy, and conceptual-​theoretical considerations. The pragmatic use stems from the fact that the seemingly neutral term “system” denotes a group of related things, in casu a set of higher education institutions that are in one way or another connected to each other (geographically, politically, culturally). The pragmatic stance is often connected to policy considerations, an approach particularly visible in comparative higher education policy studies (Goedegebuure & Van Vught, 1994). Given that most policies stem from national governments (since the rise of the nation state; Neave, 2001), arguably the most important actor setting the direction for higher education, it is understandable—​and largely unproblematic—​to define the higher education system as the set of higher education organizations that are targeted and affected by national policies. “Unproblematic” needs to be qualified, in that a perception of systems defined by nationally determined boundaries may be less tenable in a context of highly internationalized and globalized higher education: Policies may be bound by national perimeters, but students, staff, and ideas (Czarniawksi & Sevón, 2005) travel across national borders (e.g., student mobility, international branch campuses, joint degrees, cross-​border accreditation). I will return to this theme in the next section. The choice for the use of the term “system” may, third, also be inspired by theory. Different theories spring to mind, such as Luhmann’s theory of self-​reproducing systems. Applying these theoretical notions to higher education means that units of the system (higher education institutions as organizations) are connected through communication (see, e.g., Pfeffer & Stichweh, 2015). Other system approaches in higher education are based on other strands of structural functionalism, such as Parsons and Platt’s (1973) conceptual reflection on patterns of structural differentiation of the functions of the American university. Although critically received (see, e.g., Vanderstraeten, 2015), we still can find a fair amount of references to this book in the higher education

Higher Education and Organizational Theory    195 literature. A final strand of system-​inspired conceptual approaches can be found in work that is based on engineering and natural sciences notions of a system. Examples are studies on system dynamics (see e.g., Galbraith, 2013, using system dynamics for enrolment planning).

What About Globalization? Before delving into conceptualizations of higher education organizations in fields, markets, or populations, the focus on systems—​addressed in the previous section—​ offers a stepping stone for discussing globalization. It could be argued that the perspective on higher education systems demarcated by country borders as “natural,” with reference to both legal and cultural arguments went hand in hand with an apparent neglect of globalization. The fact that higher education scholars “only” started addressing globalization by the end of the 1990s (e.g., Jarvis, 1999) and numbers of papers (in Web of Science) on the theme only passed the mark of 100 per year in 2010 may be seen as support for this claim, but there is a more nuanced story to tell, that goes beyond the “when” question and focuses on the how and why. Higher education has always been an international endeavor, and the many manifestations of it (student mobility, staff mobility, and research collaboration, but also internationalization at home and international branch campuses) have been topics of much higher education research (see Kehm & Teichler, 2007, for taking stock at the beginning of a new millennium), even though it is important to note that not all higher education institutions participate extensively in internationalization strategies and activities. But exactly this focus (on internationalization policies and activities and their outcomes) possibly kept researchers from paying too much attention to an important driver of internationalization: globalization. Somewhat overstated, globalization was merely seen as context, important to mention, but challenging in terms of unpacking it. Only when scholars commenced to extensively address globalization itself (Beerkens, 2003; Marginson & Van der Wende, 2007), other higher education scholars started to see the value of investigating the topic in more detail. A key theme in that emerging literature was national sovereignty, more specifically the potential loss of it (Beerkens, 2003), with various connotations of globalization being equated with increased competition and higher education markets offering tradeable commodities. This resulted in many higher education scholars taking a quite critical stance toward globalization. Most importantly, I argue, is that scholars positioned their work around notions of the political economy, hence particularly addressing the agency of globalization in combination with national and local forces (Marginson & Rhoades, 2002). At the same time, scholars acknowledged the dynamics of globalization: Whereas globalization affects higher education, the latter—​being very international—​can also be seen as a major contributor to processes of globalization. Instead of being perceived as context (quite often depicted in vague or abstract terms, even though higher education

196   Jeroen Huisman scholars relied on important theoretical and conceptual insights with reference to work of, e.g., Ulrich Beck, Manuel Castells, and Anthony Giddens), it gained prominence with visible agency in higher education. At the same time, the literature stressed the continued power and influence of the nation state and—​importantly—​emphasized that not all higher education systems and institutions equally participate in the global competition (Marginson & Van der Wende, 2007). Obviously, relatively concrete supranational developments, like GATS, the European Commission’s increasing involvement in higher education affairs, and the Bologna Process helped giving globalization a face. In that context, research also embarked on analyzing how globalization affects organizations. As said, not all higher education institutions are significantly engaged in internationalization and globalization dynamics. There is particular interest in investigating world-​class universities and/​or research universities in the top ranks of various global rankings. From the organizational scholar’s perspective, one might expect a (renewed) engagement of higher education scholars with world society theory. Surely, these scholars (see Meyer et al., 1997, for an overview) have paved the way for seeing organizations being globally embedded institutions. But limited use has been made of these important theoretical insights (but see Ramirez, 2006; Ramirez & Tiplic, 2014).2 In more recent times, higher education scholars have embraced globalization as an important phenomenon. There is now a common understanding that higher education institutions (but not all of them) are under the influence of globalization, with also specific attention to themes like regional and supranational powers and policies (Chou & Ravinet, 2015) and global rankings, competition, and world-​class universities (Hazelkorn, 2015). In this body of literature, there is relatively little reliance on organizational theories, but I will offer some important exceptions in the subsequent sections.

From System to Field . . . or Somewhere in Between Interestingly, the author of one of the most quoted sources on higher education systems (Clark, 1983, p. 4) shows some uneasiness with the system concept. In the introduction of the book, he describes the higher education system “in a narrow, conventional sense to refer to an aggregate of formal entities,” which clearly resonates with the neutral and the structural-​functional sociological approach to systems. However, he also—​purposively—​uses a broader definition that “includes any of the population when engaged in postsecondary educational activities, either as controllers, organizers, workers, or consumers.” This notion clearly reflects field thinking. DiMaggio and Powell (1983, p. 148) offer—​in the same year, and very likely the authors are unaware of each other’s writings—​the following description of organizational field in their seminal work: “those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional

Higher Education and Organizational Theory    197 life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar services or products.” Clark (1983) acknowledges that the broader definition raises questions about the boundaries of systems, expanding and contracting across time and space, but accepts this ambiguity in light of the boundary-​crossing nature of academic workers. They are (Clark, 1983, p. 5) “loosely bounded,” being connected to colleagues in other universities but also often being legitimately employed elsewhere. The flexibility in approaches allows Clark to comfortably speak about government-​system relationships in his chapter on authority (who rules?) and integration (how is organizational action coordinated?) in the narrow sense of the system concept. At the same time, he leans toward the broader field perspective in the chapters on beliefs, values, and knowledge (higher education being a social structure for the control of advanced knowledge). Clark’s struggle is not a wrestle that solely pertains to the study of higher education. Even the core proponents of the field approach in organizational theory sometimes lean toward a functionalist or pragmatic approach. Two examples are offered from seminal texts on organizational fields. In the second part of their 1983 paper, DiMaggio and Powell offer a set of hypotheses on organizational fields “to predict empirically which organizational fields will be most homogeneous in structure, process and behavior” (p. 154). It is clear from their predictions that they actually use a rather narrow definition of the field, focusing on key suppliers. Also subsequent field studies (see Mizruchi & Fein, 1999 for a review) focus on behavior of firms and businesses. Mezias’s (1990, p. 443) study is a good example of how pragmatics and functional arguments play out in the determination of the field: “Data . . . were constrained by the availability of empirical measures . . . Because of this data-​missing problem, the sample . . . consists of the 200 largest nonfinancial corporations in the United States in 1969.” The second example stems from Scott’s (2004) work. Here actually the word “functional” is explicitly used to denote a set of “similar and dissimilar interdependent organizations operating in a functionally specific arena together with their exchange partners, funding sources and regulators” (Scott, 2004, p. 9).

Isomorphism in Higher Education In the 1980s, higher education policy scholars continued to rely on the systems concept, but higher education scholars interested in organizations and organizational change increasingly became interested in fields. It took, however, six years before DiMaggio and Powell’s idea of institutional isomorphism is formally recognized in higher education studies. Checking citation patterns in the field of (higher) education (using Web of Science), the concept is first used by Levinson (1989) to illustrate developments in American higher education. The first European application can be found in Maassen and Potman (1990), questioning whether the intended governmental policies to create more distinctiveness across Dutch universities will be successful.

198   Jeroen Huisman The former suggests a pattern of diffusion of DiMaggio and Powell’s ideas. This notion of diffusion can also be found in Cai and Mehari (2015). They tracked when and how institutional theory has been applied in higher education journal articles. The authors conclude that “it took 10–​15 years for higher education researchers to adopt the ideas and concepts of new institutionalism.” This is a fair assessment, but a fundamental issue is the implicit assumption that the development of institutional concepts and thinking would precede the use in higher education studies. Could it actually be that institutional thinking—​but possibly authors were using different concepts to denote the same phenomena—​was already present in higher education research? Particularly regarding isomorphism, this case can be made. For sure, DiMaggio and Powell’s ideas are also built on earlier insights (e.g., Hawley, 1968, on human ecology approach that also features the concept of structural isomorphism), but the notion of organizational similarity can also be found in early writings on higher education. Next two concepts from higher education research are discussed that are—​I argue—​largely similar to DiMaggio and Powell’s notion and mechanisms of isomorphism: institutional homogenization and academic drift. Riesman (1958, p. 21) speaks to “institutional homogenization” as a process in which colleges tend to follow national models instead of following the quite often path-​ breaking ideas of their founding leaders. Whereas in early days international models may have guided these leaders, Riesman argues that in the 1950s, colleges model themselves upon each other. He uses the metaphor of the “snakelike procession” in which the avant-​garde form the head and the middle part “seeks to catch up with where the head once was” (p. 35). Seeking prestige and legitimacy in the hierarchy of institutions (by college and university leaders but also by academic staff) is an important mechanism of homogenization. These mechanisms clearly resonate with DiMaggio and Powell’s normative isomorphism stemming from professionalization, with reference to universities being important training grounds for the development of organizational norms that are disseminated and confirmed—​with professors moving from college to college. Similarly, the notion of mimicry also resonates with the mechanism of organizations modeling themselves after similar organizations that are considered legitimate or successful. Admittedly, Riesman does not point at uncertainty being an important motive for copying behavior; he argues that college and university motives may vary considerably, depending—​among others—​on whether an institution is at the head, middle, or tail of the snake. Readers may think the reference to this particular work of Riesman is somewhat obscure (the book is a collection of lectures), but Jencks and Riesman (1968) further explore the idea of the snakelike procession, now under the label “academic revolution.” Also other authors in the 1960s referred to homogenization/​isomorphism. Schultz and Stickler (1965) discuss vertical extension, alluding to the fact that colleges started to broaden their profile—​read: tried to gain prestige—​by offering four-​year programs. Berelson (1960), in a similar vein, discusses the expansion of graduate programs at US universities.

Higher Education and Organizational Theory    199 The idea of the snakelike procession possibly did not catch a lot of attention beyond the United States, but the concept of academic drift did. Tight (2015) traces the first use of the concept of academic drift in higher education studies back to the 1960s, but he argues that the work of Pratt and Burgess (1974) on the developments in the UK polytechnic sector has been most influential in popularizing the concept. Academic drift denotes the historical process of aspiration to achieve university status and to resemble universities. The concept emerged from empirical observations of the authors while studying the developments in the polytechnic sector. Perhaps, academic drift was a more relevant anchor point for European higher education researchers and policymakers than Riesman’s snakelike procession. This is due to the different configuration of higher education systems in Europe. European governments—​in the main—​chose the establish binary systems in the 1960s and 1970s to deal with the increasing demand for higher education. They created “alternative” sectors of higher education (Teichler, 1988), based on an equal-​but-​different philosophy. Stratification, a distinctive characteristic of the US system, was more an exception (United Kingdom, France) than a widespread phenomenon in Europe. Tight (2015) confirms—​reporting 1,500 papers having used the concept of academic drift—​the widespread use vis-​à-​vis less often used concepts like vertical extension or mission drift or creep. Despite the popularity of the concept, one cannot escape the observation that whereas conceptually rich and convincing, only few higher education researchers have studied the mechanisms of academic drift empirically. That is, many studies note—​quite often based on personal observations or interpretations—​ increasing homogenization in higher education systems. Who (aspiring higher education leaders, academics, policymakers?) and why (esteem, legitimacy, uncertainty?), however, drove drift is quite often not sufficiently clear. Some studies clearly distinguish an important role of policy. Lepori and Kyvik (2010) saw important roles of governments that stimulated a research function in non-​university sectors. Neave (1979) also points at imprecise policies that may have left higher education institutions of new sectors clueless regarding their position in the higher education system, particularly on how to position themselves vis-​à-​vis the dominant university sector. That said, most studies—​ implicitly or explicitly—​seem to point at the organizations themselves (especially their leaders and academic staff) as drivers of the processes of drift. Connecting these insights from studies on academic drift to the concept of isomorphism reveals striking similarities. The mechanisms portrayed by DiMaggio and Powell (1983) have been addressed by higher education scholars at least a decade before their seminal paper appeared. Uncertainty about their specific mission may have invited non-​ university institutions to mimic the traditional university. And normative-​cognitive processes may have led staff and managers to achieve a similar status and level of legitimacy as the universities. There are differences as well. Higher education scholars were relatively slow to empirically detail the specific mechanisms of isomorphism, and—​ granted—​DiMaggio and Powell (1983) were the first to holistically address isomorphism. Importantly, the latter may have been straightforward regarding the constraining roles of structures. Higher education scholars agreed that indeed regulation may be stifling

200   Jeroen Huisman innovative behavior, but argued at the same time that normative-​cognitive pressures for academic drift may be so strong that governmental regulation—​in this case, setting clear boundaries for sectors of higher education and clear mandates for specific institutions—​is needed to counter isomorphic behavior (Huisman & Morphew, 1998).

Fields and Globalization Returning to the use of the concept “field” and use thereof in higher education studies, it would be too simplistic to assume that higher education scholars—​when referring to fields—​only used DiMaggio and Powell’s new institutional insights. Taking Kluttz and Fligstein’s (2016) paper, who—​next to new institutional theory, refer to strategic action fields (SAFs) and Bourdieu’s field theory, we see that higher education scholars do use the latter approaches in their analyses. For instance, Naidoo (2010) analyses South African higher education through a Bourdieusian lens and also Marginson (2008) clearly situates his reflection on global higher education around Bourdieu’s notions of power, agency, and position. The SAF theory has to a limited extent been applied to higher education (but see Taylor, 2015). Whereas it could be argued that both Bourdieu’s field theory and SAF are quite flexible when it comes to the demarcation of fields—​that is, they could be national, but not necessarily—​and especially SAF’s notion of emerging fields—​it is interesting to see that most higher education scholars stay in the “comfort zone” of analyzing fields in “natural” contexts, that is, enclosed by national borders. There are noteworthy exceptions of authors who use insights from field theories and address the global dimension. For instance, Paradeise and Thoenig (2013) discuss how universities in different geographical settings can be seen to grapple with paying attention to (global) notions of excellence and/​or reputation as dimensions of quality. Importantly, they analytically debate the organizational consequences (organizational structure, role of management, social regulation of work) of the different emphases universities may put on excellence and/​or reputation. Another example is Hüther and Krücken’s (2016) argument to see universities as being embedded in fields at different levels: global, European, national, and regional. Universities actually are, it is argued, positioning themselves or are positioned in (nested) fields, and this may explain both processes of isomorphism and diversification in different fields. Also the literature on the phenomenon of so-​called world-​class universities increasingly starts to rely on the perspective of universities operating in a global field (Ramirez & Tiplic, 2014; Shin & Kehm, 2013).

Fields, Systems . . . and What About Populations? I briefly address populations and population ecology, given the considerable interest of higher education researchers and policymakers in preserving organizational diversity.

Higher Education and Organizational Theory    201 Just before DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) ideas around field isomorphism found their way into higher education, a few scholars made use of insights from population ecology (Hannan & Freeman, 1977; see Baum & Shipilov, 2006, for an overview). But, despite the popularity of population ecology, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, it has hardly been applied to higher education. There are two explanations for scholars’ hesitance to use these insights. First, some pragmatic considerations. One would need sizeable populations to do relevant research. Even the largest European countries in Europe (United Kingdom, Germany, Italy) would have relatively small populations of higher education institutions suitable for sophisticated analyses. Apart from this, due to its primarily public nature and concomitant governmental (financial) support accompanied by considerable levels of bureaucracy, population dynamics are plausibly primarily dependent on one environmental factor: governmental regulation. A corollary is that death rates in many populations across the world have been close to zero for a long time, leaving limited scope for analyzing population dynamics. At most, population ecology would be helpful in explaining growth patterns. Second, insofar that population ecology could possibly have shed new light on population growth in higher education, the theory needed to compete with a well-​established literature in the sociology of higher education (particularly the work of Trow, 1974, 1979, 1999) to explain growth patterns. Trow analyzes the impressive transformation of US higher education from elite to mass (and later almost universal) participation. Because of his work with and for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD; Trow, 1974, 1979), these ideas gained attention beyond the United States, first in Europe, later in other regions (see Tight, 2019, for an analysis of the reception and use of the concept of massification). In studying the transformation of higher education, much attention was paid to student demographics, to a lesser extent to organizational demographics, and arguably scholars did not immediately link organizational growth to population dynamics (as central feature of population ecology). In short, institutional diversity was sidetracked given a high(er) interest in issues revolving around participation and access. That said, analyses of US higher education (e.g., Birnbaum, 1983; Morphew, 2009; Zammuto, 1984) all build on population ecology thinking and offer interesting insights in the limited growth in institutional diversity, despite a vast increase of student enrolments. And there is continued interest in the theme, given recent contributions to the debate on institutional diversity (Harris, 2020) as well as a focus on quantitative studies on organizational diversity in higher education (Huisman et al., 2008, 2015). As will be clear from both the theoretical underpinnings and the applications, in population ecology studies, there is limited conceptual space for addressing globalization. That is, almost by default domestic boundaries are used to indicate the “natural” boundaries of populations under study. In that sense, organizational population studies in higher education adhere to the same principles as the “higher education as a system” scholars. In case globalization is addressed, it merely features as a contextual incident. There is, however, an emerging literature that studies populations at a global level (e.g., Abbott et al., 2016), although not yet—​as far as I could detect—​on higher education institutions.

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Variants of Institutionalism and Alternative Approaches: Institutional Logics and Markets As in the case of isomorphism, an argument can be offered regarding the dissemination of the concept of institutional logics. Here the storyline would start with pointing at the early references to logics, with most scholars acknowledging that the roots can be found in the work of Friedland and Alford (1991); but see also Thornton et al. (2012). Logics are defined as “a set of material practices and symbolic constructions [that] constitute organizing principles” (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 24), examples being the state, the family, religion, and capitalism. Presented as a macro-​theory, scholars quickly applied it to organizations, finding it a helpful tool to address issues of agency, change, and historical variance. Exchanging the fairly homogeneous idea of organizations as actors, organizations are viewed as being populated by human agents with different norms and value sets (based on different logics). I follow Cai and Liu (2020, p. 137), noting that in institutional logics the notion of organizational field is extended to institutional fields, which may consist of various organizational fields. Partly as a consequence, structuration (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) is not the sole driving force of isomorphism. Institutional logics opens the door for influences from outside strictly defined organizational fields, enabling change. Lepori (2016) shows that higher education scholars have made extensive use of the conceptual tools offered by institutional logics. One explanation is that many higher education researchers would argue that higher education institutions are prime examples of (complex) organizations characterized by different logics. In fact, the standard view in higher education research stresses goal ambiguity, disciplinary subcultures (Becher & Trowler, 2001), and social structures (Whitley, 1978) and—​on top of that—​inherent struggles between academic professionals, administrators, and management on the basis of different value sets (see, e.g., universities as republics of scholars versus stakeholder organizations, Bleiklie & Kogan, 2007). It would be fair, therefore, to argue that the interest in potential value and culture clashes within higher education not only emerged after institutional logics gained ground. Lepori (2016)—​almost in passing—​notes a striking similarity between institutional logics and what Clark (1983) termed the “triangle of coordination.” Clark’s depiction of the market, state, and academic oligarchy as key coordinating forces in academia, with a keen eye for historical and cross-​national differences, can certainly be seen as institutional logics avant la lettre, especially if one were to compare his coordination forces with Thornton’s (2004) logics state, markets, and professions. Moreover, debates on the market and the state in higher education date back to the 1970s (Leslie & Johnson, 1974). Also at the organizational level, there has been a lively debate on shifts in higher education from being a public service to a public-​private hybrid or to an entrepreneurial

Higher Education and Organizational Theory    203 university (see especially Clark, 1998; Etzkowitz, 2003). Finally, at the individual level, we see major contributions from scholars analyzing how academics themselves deal with the shift from state to market. Slaughter and Leslie’s (1997) much-​cited work on academic capitalism particularly comes to mind but also Gumport (2000)—​actually using the term “institutional logics,” without explicit references to the works of Alford, Friedland, Thornton, and so on—​and Slaughter and Leslie (1997) argue that increasingly US academics start to act as “capitalists from within the public sector: they are state-​subsidized entrepreneurs” in “public research universities, an environment full of contradictions, in which faculty and professional staff expend their human capital stocks increasingly in competitive situations” (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997, p. 9). They note that the extent to which academics engage with academic capitalism will likely differ by discipline, some of these fields being closer to the market (see also Lam, 2011). Interestingly, this rich literature foreshadows discussions in the institutional logics literature focusing on the question of whether logics are compatible or not and under what circumstances (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Besharov & Smith, 2014; Greenwood et al., 2010). Through deeming eyes, it looks like much of the higher education literature of the 1980s and 1990s speaks of gradual transitions to the market logic or the integration of market elements in the public/​state bureaucracy domain. But there is also a considerable literature that talks about the incompatibility of the different value sets of markets and the state or that shows that the shift toward the market does not yield the expected outcomes (Münch, 2014). Higher education scholars may have “discovered” logics before it became en vogue in institutional theory, but—​even more than in the case of isomorphism—​they were using quite distinctive concepts and built on different disciplinary insights (economics, public administration, political sociology). Although authors in different countries did address the same theme, a cumulative and integrated perspective did not emerge. Lepori (2016) contends that also with respect to the use of institutional logics in higher education studies, scholars have not yet made use of all elements of the theory’s toolbox, and he offers an interesting agenda for research. In that agenda, there is attention to unravelling institutional complexity in higher education institutions, but limited attention to connecting institutional logics very explicitly to globalization. The latter observation is echoed by sparse attention from other scholars on this theme (but see Buckner and Zapp, 2021, analyzing the global higher education landscape through the lens of institutional logics).

Conclusion and Reflection The analysis in this chapter leads me to the following conclusions. First, the claim that higher education scholars have been slow to pick up insights from organizational theory needs qualification. In some areas, higher education scholars offered important

204   Jeroen Huisman insights, particularly on the topics of academic drift (isomorphism) and coordination (logics) that could be labeled as institutionalism avant la lettre. Interestingly, conceptual thinking of higher education scholars on these themes, by, for example, Riesman (1958), Pratt and Burgess (1974), and Clark (1983), has hardly been noticed by institutional organizational scholars, with a few notable exceptions, such as Clark’s (1972) work on organizational saga. Why this is the case is mere speculation, but the explanation that each group of researchers lives and works in their own subdisciplinary/​theme-​based field makes sense. How and why exactly ideas travel from the disciplines to the field of higher education and vice-​versa is, however, an exciting question for further investigation, especially in light of creating more synergy between different branches. Second, developments in higher education research have largely been driven by specific features of their organizational configurations and contexts. This explains why the system approach is much applied, certainly in the period until the 1980s, and also explains why globalization did not feature largely in higher education studies (until the 2000s): It fitted with the then existing consensus that national boundaries are natural demarcations of collectives of organizations worthy of investigation. The same argument goes for the use of markets and market-​inspired theories, which were only considered as “useful” approaches and concepts, once market mechanisms were introduced in higher education (with the exception of early applications in the United States; Leslie & Johnson, 1974). The argument can be extended to the lack of early engagement of higher education scholars with themes like organizational identity and image: In a context in which governments largely dictated the missions of their higher education institutions and these institutions were not yet “complete organizations” (Brunsson & Sahlin-​ Andersson, 2000), higher education did not seem a priority area for studying identity, image, and related themes like branding (but see Clark, 1972, for an exception; see also Dumay et al., 2017, for an overview). These points support the overall idea that much of higher education researchers’ curiosity continued to be driven by real-​time challenges in higher education, and to a lesser extent by theoretical puzzles. Third, as a corollary, higher education scholars have struggled—​and likely continue to struggle—​with concepts like market, fields, populations, and systems in that the community of higher education researchers continues to see fields, systems, and so on as empirical phenomena, not as theoretical or conceptual constructs. Likewise, important drivers of organizational change in fields and systems, such as globalization, are primarily presented as “neutral” facts and/​or context, whereas there is a clear need to conceptualize and unpack the notion of globalization and pay specific attention to organizational and field ramifications of globalization. In case individual researchers are aware of the theoretical underpinnings of some of these concepts, they may pick and mix from the organizational studies toolbox as they see fit (but see, e.g., Hüther and Krücken, 2016; Marginson, 2008, for important exceptions). The pick-​and-​mix approach in many higher education studies certainly has the potential to lead to innovative insights, but at the same time it sustains the fragility and fragmentation of higher education research (see also Daenekindt & Huisman, 2020). To end on a positive note, the important insights offered by field theories and the organizational scholars that make use of these, especially in relation to globalization,

Higher Education and Organizational Theory    205 should be taken to heart by higher education scholars. That is not to say that institutional approaches are flawless (see e.g., the critical reflection on institutional logics by Johansen & Waldorf, 2017, and the many unsolved puzzles in institutional theory in general by Greenwood et al., 2017). Neither is it argued that all institutional theories have fully embraced globalization and incorporated mechanisms to explain how and why globalization affects organizational fields. But the various theoretical strands within institutional theory offer many opportunities for application in the context of higher education. With globalization now really becoming visible in that field (think of phenomena like world-​class universities, the strive for excellence, global rankings, increasing international collaboration, the rise of the knowledge society, and shifting power balances between nation states and their higher education systems), it is impossible to ignore globalization or to present it as “just” context. This recommendation is backed with an invitation to organizational scholars to (continue to) investigate higher education and its institutions. As shines through in the higher education literature addressed in this chapter, various puzzles—​especially the one on divergence and/​or homogenization in higher education fields—​have not yet been solved. It might be particularly fruitful if organizational scholars and higher education scholars would join hands and tackle these issues. A particular research agenda I deem worthwhile would be to continue to analytically and empirically bridge the macro-​and meso-​levels. The relatively robust expectations and findings of world society scholars at the macro-​levels of the higher education fabric should be complemented with in-​depth investigations of meso-​level (and where appropriate, micro-​level) developments. That is, the impact of global educational frames and standards and possibly the increased impact thereof is not denied, but they do not sit comfortably with the many studies that highlight the diversity across and within higher education organizational fields (e.g., Buckner & Zapp, 2021; Huisman et al., 2002; Hüther & Krücken, 2016). World society scholars are aware of variations of the globalized model, but they are somewhat hesitant in proposing how to investigate and explain variations and deviations (but see Schofer et al., 2022). Whereas some authors call for a further theoretical sophistication, for example, by proposing to combine world society theory with institutional logics (Lounsbury & Wang, 2020), my plea would be to particularly enrich our understanding through empirical elaboration at the field level. Our scholarly preoccupation with rankings, the knowledge society, excellence, and high-​reputation universities should be balanced with investigating organizational dynamics at “average,” “ordinary,” and “unique” institutions and to research field dynamics in less obvious (i.e., non-​Anglo-​Saxon) higher education systems.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following colleagues for helpful comments on a draft version of the chapter: Jelena Brankovic (Bielefeld University, Germany), Yuzhuo Cai (Tampere University, Finland), Marco Seeber (University of Agder, Norway), and Malcolm Tight (Lancaster University, UK).

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Notes 1. I am aware that—​on the basis of a particular article—​it is not always easy to decide whether the author is a higher education researcher or a discipline-​based scholar. Generally, looking at a researcher’s CV, one is probably able to decide whether s/​he belongs to either camp, but arguably there is a significant gray area with higher education researchers unremittingly using disciplinary theories/​concepts and disciplinary scholars spending much of their time researching higher education. The same applies to the use of the term “higher education literature” (some if it being applied, but some also discipline based) and higher education journals. 2. Here it is worthwhile to note that Ramirez actually is a key representative of the Stanford School with a keen interest in higher education. In that sense it is difficult to label him strictly as a higher education scholar (he pays a lot of attention to higher education and publishes in typical higher education journals) or a disciplinary scholar (educational sociologist in the Stanford tradition).

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Section II Structural Approaches to Globalization in Education

chapter 9

The Gl obaliz at i on of Experti se ? Epistemic Governance, Quantification, and the Consultocracy Jenny Ozga

Introduction This discussion draws on research on education primarily, but not exclusively, focusing on Europe, which explores knowledge-​governing relations and highlights the knowledge-​based resources available to transnational governing elites, including regulatory instruments and performance data (see, e.g., Fenwick et al., 2014; Grek et al., 2021; Lawn & Grek, 2012; Ozga et al., 2011). It shows how those instruments make possible the shift toward governing through networks of new actors, who define education in global terms, and look to the benchmarking and competitive performance regimes of transnational organizations for solutions to be applied across nation states (Gorur, 2017, 2019). The discussion highlights the interconnection of changes in knowledge and change in governing, including the rapid dissemination of knowledge as data, its increased availability and complexity, along with change in the actors producing knowledge, especially the growth of private actors, brokers, consultants, and specialists who move knowledge into policy (Ball, 2016, 2018a, 2018b), and the politicization of knowledge production and its shaping by policy requirements into “actionable” knowledge (Grundmann & Stehr, 2012). The consequences of this development may be summarized as the simultaneous externalization of policy advice, especially from scientific and technical sources, and the politicization of the knowledge production processes through which scientific and technical knowledge is produced (Fourcade 2010; Stone 2013, 2019). Globalization is understood here primarily as neoliberal globalization, that is, as the global reconstruction of production relations, as a neoliberal “project” driving the

214   Jenny Ozga global integration of markets (Bishop & Payne, 2021; Robinson, 2017). The dominance of economic logic in this project reduces the capacity of nation states and prioritizes their activity in the economic sphere, including in the policy field of education. Neoliberal globalization drives the restructuring of education provision and encourages the entry of new, often commercial actors into the field. The changes that follow from neoliberal globalization of education illustrate an often overlooked feature of education, that is, the extent to which it is embedded in wider economic relations, and reveals that it is not an autonomous field. Even within its traditional location in the nation state, it was subject to three distinct, sometimes competing demands—​serving and sustaining the economy, enabling political stability, and building social and cultural cohesion. Globalization, and the pursuit of the knowledge economy, prioritizes the economic, at the expense of the social/​cultural and political, and with consequences for these spheres of activity. It was within the nation state in Western Europe that most education and training systems developed in the 19th and 20th centuries as negotiated settlements between nation-​building states and education workforces, to advance agendas driven by projects of national identification, industrialization, and by Enlightenment commitments to individual equality and collective progress. These agendas were framed by nation-​ building activities and by a modernist scientific rationality that sought evidence about populations, and which relied upon and built a professional workforce of state employees to deal with social problems. The “problem-​solving” functions of education included preparation of the workforce, shaping and disciplining identities to ensure social order and cohesion, and legitimating social selection and ordering that often mirror social and economic inequalities. Education policy and national education systems, with different emphases and different traditions, mediated these contradictory imperatives in different ways, for example through a professionalized teaching workforce, and assessment and examinations systems that were accepted as objective measures of merit, but without solving the problems they create, or eliminating the tensions that they generate. Education was (and is) contested terrain, historically sedimented in distinctive national systems, and functioning as a repository and agency of—​sometimes disputed—​national traditions and sometimes shifting—​identities (Ozga, 2017). The contradictory functions demanded of it were pursued with varying levels of intensity, depending on largely exogenous factors. The knowledge economy agenda combines with globalization to disrupt those nationally embedded and institutionalized practices and norms in education/​learning, as in other spheres. Education systems are tightly coupled to the knowledge economy (Jessop et al., 2008), in which knowledge—​its production and application—​is seen as essential in securing long-​term economic growth, and which therefore requires restructuring of education provision at all scales. Knowledge economy-​driven change from the 1980s onward includes the increasingly technocratic rationalization of work in the context of globalized production and the introduction of new work cultures and the relationships that accompany them, creating increased employee dependency, encouraging limited and punitive contractual relations that advantage transnational employers, fueling demand for intensified productive efforts from workers, resulting in their heightened risk

The Globalization of Expertise?    215 and insecurity, as well as the de-​collectivization of their interests and alienation from historically embedded values. These alterations in working conditions do little to sustain the idea that workers and workplaces are generating resources for the Knowledge Economy in knowledge-​rich continuously learning environments. All forms of education, from early childhood provision, through schools, vocational education and training, and higher education, are now interconnected through the attitudes and dispositions encouraged by new knowledge practices, which are consistent and coherent across the range of institutions and beyond and outside them. Schooling and postschool education develops learners’ capacity to learn, while learners also learn to constantly evaluate their learning through self-​evaluation, and embodied human capital, codified through qualifications, is differentially valorized in labor markets that are ordered by knowledge. Changes wrought by neoliberal globalization include changes in the architecture of power globally and within nation states, so that the market is treated as “a kind of constitutional order, with its own rules, procedures and institutions” (Jayasuriya, 2001, p. 452), placing economic institutions, such as multinationals, and other international organizations (IOs) beyond politics. Its key characteristics are the flexibilization of labor, commodification of goods and services, privatization, deregulation and reregulation, outsourcing, subcontracting, worldwide production chains, and a global regulatory structure—​the World Trade Organization (Robinson, 2011). The consequences are truly global, as from the 1990s onward, unstoppable neoliberal globalization of markets spread beyond the Anglosphere and is evident in post-​communist Central and Eastern Europe, and in the acceleration of China’s Western-​style economic development. These features combine to deepen inequalities, within and between nation states, including in educational opportunities. There is evidence of reduced social mobility and increasing economic inequality in countries as politically and economically diverse as Singapore, the United States, Israel, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, and Germany (Williamson, 2013). The neoliberal state is reduced to a facilitator of globalization, and thus can no longer be attentive to the function of maintaining a degree of social harmony or inclusion in order to reduce internal conflict, nor can it sustain and promote a coherent account of national identity, and thus maintain legitimacy. As a consequence, inequalities become more evident and deeper, conflicts between groups increase, and vulnerable social groups feel—​and indeed are—​abandoned. Put bluntly, “the transnational model of accumulation does not require an inclusionary social base and is inherently polarizing” (Robinson, 2011, p. 363). As the nation state declines, so global governance is facilitated through multilayered networks of collaboration linking national and local actors to worldwide networks and structures, with the capacity for global political action. These networks are populated by a transnational global elite, engaged in epistemic governance that reflects the contemporary interdependency of governing and knowledge (Alasuutari, 2016; Normand, 2016). This interdependency is made possible by the work of experts, and the discussion now focuses on their role in governing education; on knowledge production and use by international organizations; on the construction, diffusion, and use of knowledge expressed

216   Jenny Ozga as performance data, and the relationship of knowledge to politics. It highlights the ways in which transnational economic and political organizations pursue the global knowledge economy, enrolling nation states in this project so that the growing economization of education globally is both “colonising the cultural and transforming the nature of the political, at all scales” (Robertson & Dale, 2017, p. 857). The concluding section offers a preliminary assessment of the impact of COVID-​19 on globalization, expertise, and transnational education policy.

Epistemic Governance, Experts, and International Organizations Epistemic governance foregrounds the importance of knowledge as a resource for governing, knowledge that is available in mobile, global forms, produced and translated into “actionable knowledge” (Grundmann & Stehr, 2012) by experts and collected and distributed through knowledge-​based technologies. Epistemic governance works through networks of experts who claim to possess objective policy-​relevant knowledge, but who often share a set of normative beliefs about competition, performance measurement, and the applicability of business methods to public services that guide their knowledge production activities (Shiroma, 2014). The influence of global education reform programs, promoted by IOs, and networks of experts and the technologies associated with them (Grek, 2017; Sahlberg, 2016) is a key feature of neoliberal globalization in education. Hierarchical organization and formal regulation are increasingly displaced by networks of new actors, especially policy entrepreneurs (Ball, 2012; Ball et al., 2016), public/​private hybrids, and nonformal actors (consumers, third-​sector members, media organizations), working with standards and benchmarks and guided in action by data. Political actors appeal to the authority of science and expert knowledge (Alasuutari, 2016; Normand, 2012; Ozga, 2019) most visibly in the policy field of education in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for schools and its publication of comparative performance data, enabling IOs to establish themselves as authoritative sources of epistemic capital and capacity-​building knowledge, as sources of information about the performance of competitors, and as offering evidence to justify the pursuit of particular domestic agendas. Supra/​transnational organizations, including the OECD and the European Union, pursue a “structured agenda” for education (Robertson & Dale, 2017). That structured agenda contains prescriptions for effective education governance, prescriptions which include performance measurement, decentralization, and the involvement of private actors, and which works through coordination alongside a more direct regulating role. There is an increasingly complex landscape requiring coordination: public-​private hybrids offer education services, provision is shaped by parental choice and other new public management methods, and this calls up different

The Globalization of Expertise?    217 local, national, and international networks seeking to influence education policy, and has seen the emergence of new “knowledge actors” engaged in transnational governance (Stone, 2013, 2019). These knowledge actors operate to “translate” the increasing amount of information available, often in the form of performance data, as the massive expansion of information requires networks of experts with skills in synthesizing and brokering who reduce possibilities and make knowledge actionable: The rapid growth of experts, advisers and consultants in education arises from the rapid expansion of knowledge/​information, this provides opportunities for simplification of the problem of endless competing interpretation in order to provide a basis for action. (Grundmann & Stehr, 2012, 20–​21)

This network of experts operates to produce and disseminate a “cognitive consensus,” that is, a system of standardized policy agendas and their repertoire of benchmarks, indicators, and competitive testing regimes. The homogeneity of programs of whole system structural education reform (Ball, 2016; Sahlberg, 2016) is striking, and this consensus is promoted through appeals to its “evidence-​based” nature, or its “common sense” about “what works” which conceals the political nature of translation, because, as Shiroma (2014) points out, the label “expert” confers scientific status and authority. This is a limited, truncated version of science that does not acknowledge its often-​contested nature, nor is it attentive to the political conditions in which scientific knowledge is produced, accepted, or contested. The growth of this form of expertise is recognized as a transnational phenomenon, with experts increasingly working between national and transnational arenas, and identified as a “new governing elite” (Stone, 2013, p. 41). The OECD provides a good case study of the increasing transnational influence of IOs, and their changing production of knowledge and expertise from the 1960s to contemporary times, reflecting a shift from independent research activity to the advocacy of standardized policies in education globally. The OECD is able to promote itself as an expert knowledge-​based organization, “above” national politics, and sufficiently distanced from the context to be dispassionate and objective. Through a longitudinal study over five countries and six decades, Rautalin et al. (2021) show how OECD’s Economic Surveys have shifted in tone and content, from concentration in the 1960s on amassing information through background research, to the prioritization of policy recommendations, presented with a sharper focus, claiming ontological authority and designed to inform not only policymakers but also wider publics. Over time, the importance of the independent research activity of the organization and its basis in academic literature has declined, so that it becomes a background to the increasing use of “persuasive talk” that foregrounds more directive advice and policy steering. A further, parallel development is the growing disconnection between evidence collected in the reviews and the policy advice offered. Indeed, Rautalin and her colleagues conclude (2021, p. 15) that the OECD has moved, in this period, from being “a multi-​centred organization for cooperation and development” to operating as a global policy consultancy.

218   Jenny Ozga The capacity of IOs to shape a global education policy field is also apparent in the influence of experts working with OECD in defining and promoting global competency, an idea directly connected to the knowledge economy. Global competency assumes the possibility of a measurable and shared level of capacity and orientation to learning worldwide, assessable through OECD’s PISA for Global Competence (OECD, 2017). As Gardinier (2021, pp. 8–​9) demonstrates, the measurement of global competence promotes an idea of global learners as “autonomous individuals who can separate themselves from their social identities”; the imagined ideal learner is “future oriented, socially-​mature, goal oriented, and extremely self-​aware” (pp. 9–​10). This instrument was developed, through the meeting of a group of international experts in 2015 who worked to construct a system of assessment designed to “help education systems identify what is working and what needs to be implemented more intentionally and systematically to ensure all students develop global competence” (Asia Society/​OECD, 2018, p. 4 quoted in Gardinier, 2021, p. 13). The influence of global networks of experts is further apparent in the growing use and impact of Country Reviews (see, e.g., Browes & Verger, 2020; Grek, 2017, 2019, 2020; Hunter, 2013). The OECD’s PISA publishes data on performance that ranks nations competitively and thus identifies “problems” that need to be addressed. Those problems may then be further investigated and remedies proposed through OECD’s process of Country Review, in which international teams of experts are invited by national governments to work with “local” experts to gather and analyze data to highlight issues at the national level. This process culminates in the provision of advice and tools judged necessary to put things right. For example, Scotland has engaged substantially with OECD, following poor performance in PISA for schools in 2015, where schools recorded their worst-​ever performance, and scores for math, reading, and science all declined. This put pressure on the Scottish government (TSG), as the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) had been in power for a decade, and the attainment gap between less affluent pupils and their more privileged peers sat uncomfortably with their claim of combining excellence in education with equity and fairness (Ozga, 2019). TSG commissioned OECD expert reviews (OECD, 2015, 2021) as well as appointing an International Council of Education Advisers, which together called for intensive reform processes that signaled disruptions and departures from established relationships among expertise, knowledge, and policy. These required substantial system restructuring, increased concentration on attainment measures, and stronger assessment and testing regimes. TSG also initiated a full-​scale review of curriculum design and delivery, later extended to include examinations and assessment policy. Before these interventions, Scotland’s policy knowledge and expertise was located within a national “policy community” of central government, the local authorities, and educational institutions, including the organized teaching profession, operating relatively consensually, against a background of fairly widespread support for public comprehensive education. Media reporting of the PISA “crisis” fueled criticism of the narrowness and interdependence of that community, and of the conservatism and complacency of the teaching profession, and encouraged an attempted policy shift toward the closer alignment of Scottish education with OECD’s norms. This instance also illustrates the importance of performance data as a key element in the repertoire of IOs, and, indeed, as a central feature of neoliberal globalization of education.

The Globalization of Expertise?    219

Datafication, Digitization, and Quantification Data enter the frame because the transmission of information is necessary to hold together the diverse and networked governing forms that accompany globalization. Data enable this complex education arena to be calculated, for example through the Bologna Accord, that harmonizes different European higher education systems by creating a single degree system, and the Lisbon Process or Open Method of Coordination (OMC), in which benchmarking and comparison are core governing processes across a learning society shaped by economic reform, citizenship obligations, employability, and international comparison and performance testing in education (Grek et al., 2021). Data production and management are essential to the new governing practices; constant comparison is its symbolic feature, as well as a distinctive mode of operation. Adherence to the market principle of competition drives the engagement with comparison, and comparison establishes three key principles (1) that regular and systematic assessments are truthful practices for the improvement of national education systems; (2) that such improvement has to be analyzed in relation to the pace of change of other countries; (3) that international comparison of student performances develops the quality of national education systems while capturing educational complexity and diversity (Carvalho, 2012). What counts as knowledge work—​and especially knowledge work for policy—​is now highly dependent on data patterning and its interpretation. New networked data-​ rich governing forms promote the idea of transparency and accountability so that knowledge is drawn in to supporting the authority of these social and political processes: potentially disruptive elements are harnessed to promote a discourse of continuous scientific and technical advance (Fenwick et al., 2014; Gorur, 2019). The construction of indicators and the collection and processing of performance data install comparison as a basic principle in building policy consensus and also, importantly, in embedding self-​regulation (Ozga et al., 2011; Verger et al., 2018) as data systems not only monitor the activity of teachers and learners, but also shape individual conduct while apparently enabling autonomous, choice-​making activity supported by information (e.g., in parental choice of school, student choices in higher education, and, more broadly, life choices about individual health, investments, and so on; Piattoeva, 2014). The “popular” work that data do is to make connections to individual citizens/​learners/​ pupils in such a way as to steer or mediate their decisions and actions in relation to economic demands, to family relationships, and to all other aspects of everyday life. As Piattoeva points out, this development is not confined to “official” data: social media has grown into an efficient tool for the government of individuals and masses. The Internet sites that promote the neoliberal evaluation culture are motivated by and deeply embedded in contemporary social and political reforms, and rely on a new mode of regulation—​governing at a distance through the regulated choices of individual citizens, and through specifying subjects of responsibility, autonomy and choice. (Piattoeva, 2014, p. 8)

220   Jenny Ozga Digital data enable schools and entire sectors of society such as education to be seen as “computational” projects (Molstad & Pettersson, 2019). The “modeling” of education through digital data creates algorithmically driven “systems thinking” where complex social problems are converted into complex but solvable statistical problems. Thus, digital data encourage “solutionism.” Data analysis thus begins to produce education settings, to the same degree as education settings produce data (Selwyn, 2018). Put differently, data and data practices are not neutral representations or measurements of educational activities, but bring these activities and results into being (Decuypere, 2021). Digital data work within education/​schooling is now normalized—​it is understood universally as the basis of improvement, and it is increasing in scope: for example, there is software to support classroom management; to guide school inspection (Ozga, 2016) to perform assessment (Hartong, 2021); and to monitor school performance across all sectors and stages, including in higher education, where multinationals see market opportunities (Williamson, 2021). The generation, accumulation, processing, and analysis of digital data are understood transnationally, nationally, and institutionally as a solution to problems of schooling. Government administrative systems have always kept records and monitored conduct and behavior; however, the capacity to track transactions in real time and to connect transactional data across sites is new. New forms of data thus enable a shift from collectivized governing strategies—​applied to the “school populations” or to “ethnic minority pupils”—​to individualized, targeted practices that recognize how people move and change and “keep up” with them: it enables individualization, personalization, and differential treatment (Kitchin & Dodge, 2011). From this perspective, the very significant development of data resources in education from the early 2000s is not only a story of increased technical capacity but connects directly to the prioritization of attainment (often measured by national or international test results at fixed intervals in the school career, the results of which are published) and to a determined effort to shift school cultures so that data monitoring and active data use became the driving force of school activity. This real-​time tracking of activity has greatly increased pressure on schools to be actively engaged with their data and to be able to demonstrate their engagement through constant attention to maintaining and updating their various data systems. This state of permanent engagement creates what Thrift and French call an “automagical” system of regulation in which pupil and teacher values, eligibility, and rewards are constantly calculated and recalculated (Thrift & French, 2002).

Elites and Expertise Globalization is characterized increasingly through reference to its horizontal, culturally based forms of power and control, and distributed social relations, reflecting its networked nature (Ball, 2018a; Ball et al., 2016). There is considerable potential, however, in revisiting conceptualizations of elites, including through the lens of expertise and the production of policy knowledge, in order to highlight elite strategies of knowledge

The Globalization of Expertise?    221 production and to illustrate how they intersect with emergent and established governing forms. One effect of the current controversies and the hostility expressed toward elites in populist discourse has been to revive theoretical and empirical work in this area, as political scientists and sociologists of policy seek to understand the intersection between the possession of economic, cultural, and political capital and the growth of consultancy, technology, and new governing networks (Normand, 2016). Productive approaches to elites recognize their capacity to adjust to change in the structures of domination (Scott, 2008) and their ability to function as dynamic institutional formations, while continuing to store, hold, and combine this with the “exercise and mobilization of power” (Reed, 2012, p. 210). In neoliberal globalization there is an interrelationship among networks, data, and the emergence of elites who mobilize knowledge resources in order to form rather than simply inform policy. These elites influence through what Eric Bonds, in his study of climate and environment policy (Bonds, 2010), calls “knowledge administration”—​that is, by selecting what counts as knowledge and what does not. Indeed, Bonds draws attention to four distinct ways in which power is exercised by elites that combine to shape knowledge processes: Information suppression, that is, the purposive suppression of knowledge damaging to their interests; contesting knowledge, in which elites fund experts to attack knowledge that poses a threat to their power base; knowledge production, in which elites fund think tanks or otherwise promote the production of particular knowledges; and knowledge administration, in which elites influence the selection of what information counts as knowledge and what information does not. Elites organize themselves in networks that connect business interests with scientific consultancies, public relations firms, university researchers, and government decision-​makers to mobilize resources in order to shape what is known about a subject of concern. Elites fund think tanks, or private foundations that channel money to researchers who produce knowledge useful to them. Elite-​ funded think tanks also channel money to experts who discredit or raise doubts about scientific research that may damage or challenge elite interests. This may be accomplished through lobbyists or through the personal and business relationships of elites. This focus on elites and experts reinforces the importance of attention to structures of domination and their continuity and power in the analysis of neoliberal globalization and education. Those structures of domination can then be placed in relation with the contingent, fluid, and multiple centers of authority or “horizontal” coalitions that preoccupy much contemporary scholarship, which may underplay the enduring, “vertical” structures of domination within which they are embedded. Attention to those structures also foregrounds the capacity of expert elites to adjust and learn strategies through which they continue to pursue their material and social interests. As Scott suggests, “authoritative” and “expert” elites have the political and cultural capacity to develop “moral vocabularies of discourse” (Scott, 1996, p. 44) through which they are able to legitimate their dominance and to organize the governance regimes through which they maintain their authority.

222   Jenny Ozga The cognitive consensus in education referred to earlier is such a “moral vocabulary” that appeals to science and evidence as a way to support the claim that the politics has been taken out of education—​the argument is that we are now “getting it right” educationally (Ramirez & Meyer, 2002, p. 94), leaving ideologically driven conflicts behind, identifying best practice, learning from it, and using data to guide policymaking that is effective, efficient, and equitable. This is a technocratic narrative that has established a space “cleansed” of debate: it is a narrative that is designed to silence progressive articulations of educational principles and priorities, and it creates a space hostile to debate, and from which the social is excluded. Ideas that privilege elite assumptions about knowledge and capacity as differentially distributed and objectively “real” become orthodoxy; segregated institutional provision and curriculum content operationalize these assumptions and enable the shift to “learning.” The knowledge work of think tanks, who take on some of the appearance of research institutes, defines the horizon of what is politically possible by blurring the distinction between scientific knowledge and ideologically driven knowledge production.

Conclusion: COVID-​19, Globalization, and Education The previous discussion has stressed the importance of a structural approach to neoliberal globalization and highlighted the interdependency of elite experts and data systems in pursuit of a globally convergent “structured agenda” in education. However, the impact of the global pandemic that started in 2020 may have a significant effect on that agenda, as responses to economic crisis involve—​to a greater or lesser degree—​a revival of national governments and some interest in broadening the scope of education policy to include attention to the social functions of education. The impact of COVID-​19 on the globalized economy was and is massive: it is claimed that the pandemic triggered the sharpest and deepest economic contraction in the history of capitalism (Roubini, 2020). The consequences have been summarized by Saad-​Fihlo (2020, p. 477) as follows: To paraphrase The Communist Manifesto, all that was solid melted into air: “globalization” went into reverse; long supply chains, that were previously the only “rational” way to organize production, collapsed and hard borders returned; trade declined drastically; and international travel was severely constrained. In a matter of days, tens of millions of workers became unemployed and millions of businesses lost their employees, customers, suppliers and credit lines.

At the time of writing, it is difficult to know how enduring the turn away from neoliberal globalization and the return of the strong state will be, but in a situation of intense economic crisis the doctrine of competition and free markets is difficult to uphold, and

The Globalization of Expertise?    223 the need for large-​scale programs of public spending and state planning is apparent. The defense of neoliberalism is also muted, given the growing evidence that the impact of COVID-​19 is selectively deepened because of the deliberate and cumulative impact of the destruction of state capacities in the name of the market. In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the association of high death rates with economically deprived inner-​ city areas and, in some cases, with Black and Asian minority populations makes it difficult to conceal the effects of neoliberal globalization. In some contexts, those effects had created vulnerability among certain sectors of the population to loss of work and earnings along with vulnerability to severe illness because of poor housing and inadequate nutrition, especially where decades of austerity policies had removed their basic social security and left health and social service provision severely under-​resourced. Education has experienced disruption globally: UNESCO estimates that over 1.5 billion children missed schooling in 2020 because of school closures and lockdowns, while the World Bank has drawn attention to the particularly devastating consequences of the pandemic where education provision is already weak. The OECD, among others, highlights ways in which COVID-​19 deepens existing inequalities in provision, from scarce technological equipment and support to lack of quality in teaching (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020). Indeed, the extent of the disruption of “normal” provision of education, across all sectors, globally, has prompted some discussion of responses that go beyond crisis management, to embrace radical thinking about the shape of future provision (Sahlberg, 2020), including reducing the emphasis on performance measurement, and prioritizing support for mental health, resilience, and well-​being: the pandemic has highlighted how economic growth alone is not enough to sustain economies and societies. In the absence of a more comprehensive approach, which supports societies’ health and well-​being in addition to growth, we will remain very vulnerable to the next pandemic, as well as future waves of this one. (Graham, 2020, pp. 79–​85)

Tensions arising from competing economic and social priorities in the policy field of education are illustrated in emerging debates about more inclusive pedagogies, in the demand for attention to more vulnerable learners, and for broader definitions of learning, while issues of purpose and fairness lie beneath the surface of controversies such as those around policy for national examinations or what should constitute the experience of higher education. Adjustments in the balance among the social, political, and economic functions of education may be pursued at the national level, as nation states reengage with debates about the knowledge to be prioritized in response to the pandemic, and about purposes and priorities in education, including the extent to which local, national, contextualized needs and priorities are identified and pursued. The pandemic also reveals some fault lines in the globalized narrative of evidence-​ based policy in education, supporting cognitive consensus and informed by objective expertise. The crisis has demanded rapid and clear movement from scientific understanding into public direction (Weible et al., 2020), both in the general response to the

224   Jenny Ozga pandemic and in the policy field of education. However, the difficulty of translating complex scientific knowledge and practice into action has become more and more apparent as the crisis unfolds, as the public and politicians have had to recognize that scientific knowledge is often emergent, disputatious, contingent, and slow (Stone, 2019; Van Doren & Noordegraaf, 2020) and that it does not necessarily provide a clear guide to action. As indicated earlier, COVID-​19 has entered a policy space in education characterized, to a greater or lesser degree, by a proliferation of sources of expertise, accompanied by a narrowing of the kinds of expertise that count. Data had increasingly guided practice, and there has also been a turn toward hard(er) disciplinary sources of educational knowledge, such as neuroscience, and toward technological solutions for learning problems. There are some indications that overreliance on technical expertise to address issues in education highlighted by the pandemic may create political problems, for example where algorithms have been used to calculate examination grades, with results perceived as unfair by public and learners, and impacting especially on pupils in poor areas. Whether this will lead to a fundamental change in the “structured agenda” for education, and a dilution of economically driven learning and data-​driven performance measurement, is uncertain, especially given the opportunities now presented for the promotion of even greater dependence on educational technologies (Williamson, 2021) so that technological “solutionism” may yet continue to underpin a narrowly instrumental view of education (Teras et al., 2020), despite the inequalities revealed by COVID-​19, and despite the huge social cost of the neoliberal globalizing project.

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chapter 10

Gl obaliz at i on, Pe r sonaliz ati on, a nd t h e L earning Appa rat u s Maarten Simons

Introduction The expression “lifelong learning” is now commonplace. To some, it sounds like a condemnation, to others a necessity, and to others still an ideal of freedom. However different these reactions to lifelong learning may be, they demonstrate that lifelong learning has become a reality, or at least a part of our shared world of experience, and consequently something we must relate to in one way or another. Regarding the pervasiveness of learning today, two approaches dominate our explanations. The recourse to learning can be understood as an expression of the logic of capital in late modern society, where the capitalization of learning is an attempt to reconcile social and cultural life with the necessity of (re)producing capital. In another approach, the organization of lifelong learning can be explained as a deliberate political project in which states or transnational entities—​such as the European Union—​seek renewed stability and legitimacy. Without questioning the value of previous approaches, a third and different one is developed in this chapter.1 Michel Foucault’s work indicates that the functioning and impact of politics and the economy can only be clarified if we examine both how people are governed and how they come to govern themselves. This is formulated very precisely by Maurizio Lazzarato: The remarkable novelty introduced by Foucault in the history of capitalism since its origins, is the following: the problem that arises from the relation between politics

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    229 and the economy is resolved by techniques and dispositifs that come from neither. This “outside,” this “other” must be interrogated. The functioning, the efficacy and the force of politics and the economy, as we all know today, are not derived from forms of rationality that are internal to these logics, but from a rationality that is exterior and that Foucault names “the government of men.” (Lazzarato, 2006, p. 1)

In other words, the governing of people is characterized by its own rationality, or at least a rationality that cannot be derived from the logic of capital or the logic of political power alone. The field of governmentalization therefore becomes intelligible only when we focus on the technologies, instruments, and procedures, as well as the implied modes of reasoning and the resulting assemblage of apparatuses with their own operating logic. Foucault clarifies the key term dispositif (apparatus) as: a resolutely heterogeneous grouping comprising discourses, institutions, architectural arrangements, policy decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophic, moral and philanthropic propositions; in sum, the said and the not-​said, these are elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itself is the network that can be established between these elements. (Foucault, 1977a, p. 299)

An apparatus, thus, is a kind of strategic assemblage or a “dominating strategic response” to a “historical problem” and, hence, “apparatuses are the forms composed of heterogeneous elements that have been stabilised and set to work in multiple domains” (Rabinow, 2003, p. 54). The term “apparatus” defines a kind of self-​regulating order that cannot be reduced to a single strategist or an underlying cause or actor, but nevertheless has an intelligibility at the strategic level, which emerges from an “assemblage” of heterogeneous components and local tactics (Rose, 1999, p. 53). Hence, as Rabinow puts it, the aim of the approach is “to identify apparatuses, to trace their genealogy, to show their emergence, and thereby to make them available for thought and change” (Rabinow, 2003, p. 55). This chapter develops the thesis that a learning apparatus has taken shape in recent decades, and that understanding the constituents, assemblage, and operation of this strategic complex is essential to understanding the ubiquity of learning. As a consequence, we argue that the social apparatus—​and the resulting governmentalization of the modern state in the name of the social—​is gradually being replaced (or at least reassembled) by a learning apparatus and new forms of governmentalization of the European Union and its member states, the geographical focus of this chapter. This is a process through which lifelong learning is inscribed both as a reality that is susceptible to governmental intervention and as the ethical substance of governing oneself as a (European) citizen. Finally, we elaborate on two operational effects that play an important role in the steady expansion and stabilization of the (digital) learning apparatus: personalization (as a form of self-​governing) and different sorts of globalization effects.

230   Maarten Simons

From the Social Question to the Learning Question It has been discussed in great detail how security and freedom appeared as two interrelated objectives of the government of men and have allowed for the birth of modern, liberal states in Europe, as well as modern capitalist societies (Foucault, 2004a, 2004b). This is not a history of a growing étatisation (“statification”) of society, but of a governmentalization of the state: The state—​and the centralization of power acting upon a population in a defined territory—​finds its (new) justification by governing men in the name of freedom and security. From the second half of the 19th century onward, the act of governing men gradually took on a social dimension that led to the birth of the social state, which attempted to align individual freedom and collective security through a “governing ‘in the name of the social” ’ (Rose, 1999). Issues regarding individual freedom and collective well-​being consequently became problematized in social terms, as well as those related to abnormality and deviance, which gradually came to be understood as social risks. Casting threats and dangers in terms of risks to the social order correlated with the appearance of “the social question,” which found a governmental translation in strategies of risk prevention and social regulation. From there on, society became something that had to be defended (Foucault, 2003). One can observe the governmental translation of the social question in the way that the classic idea of solidarity was recast and made operational though centralized technologies of social security (e.g., health insurance, retirement benefits, as well as social rights and public services), which in turn grounded the authority and legitimacy of the state as a governing body (Ewald, 1986). The social therefore emerged as the strategic relay between freedom and security in what is now more commonly referred to as the welfare state. Without going into too much detail, three issues related to education should nonetheless be stressed regarding this governmentalization in the name of the social. First, the social became a strategic medium for governments to translate societal problems into educational solutions: Schools were gradually turned into controlled locations of socialization, and society could thus be governed through school and curriculum reform. An example of this is how educational equality—​previously framed in universal terms—​gradually became problematized in social terms and was thereby reformulated into a governing issue: to promote equal opportunity and free access to education (as well as [extending] compulsory education) so as to ensure individual freedom and simultaneously safeguard social order and progress (Hunter, 1994, pp. 111–​ 112). Second, the development of (scientific) knowledge was not separated from the social apparatus and new forms of governing. The most obvious expression of this can be found in the social sciences, with Durkheim’s work (on education) in the early 20th century as a striking illustration. For Durkheim (1922)—​who claimed, “we are who we are only because we live in society”—​the role of education was to develop the “social

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    231 being” of human beings: “[t]‌here is no school which can claim the right to give an antisocial education.” He also explicitly argued that the “view of the disinterested bystander state makes little sense,” since the state’s responsibility is precisely “to guarantee that education be exercised in a social way.” This is not meant to picture sociology as a kind of administrative science, but to indicate a shared problematization in social terms that allowed this knowledge to play a tactical role in the social apparatus. Third, governing in the name of the social also shaped specific experiences of time and space (Simons, 2014a, 2014b). Typical examples might be the images of progress and modernization and the dreams of social emancipation, upward social mobility, and economic growth. These images and dreams conveyed a specific conception of time that was linear and chronological: The present was seen as the moment of change in between past and future, and hence, the occasion to break with the past in making the future through social planning (Popkewitz, 2008, pp. 24–​27). Foucault underlined “the discovery of an evolution in terms of ‘progress’ ” (1977b, p. 160), where the experience of progress itself—​both at an individual and social level—​guided and legitimized governing in the name of the social, which in turn further stabilized the social apparatus. This conception of time was linked to a conception and organization of space as a set of spatially and socially defined activities (e.g., family life, education, work, leisure, etc.). These activities were located, coordinated, relatively stable, and worked together. More importantly, they were always already part of the ongoing process of modernization and progress. Toward the end of the second half of the 20th century, a new question emerged that started to have a powerful impact on society, and would come to replace the social in terms of a different governmental problematization. A clear articulation of this new question can be read in The European Commission’s white paper Teaching and Learning: Towards the Learning Society (1995): The individual’s place in relation to their fellow citizens will increasingly be determined by their capacity to learn and master fundamental knowledge. The position of everyone in relation to their fellow citizens in the context of knowledge and skills therefore will be decisive. This relative position which could be called the “learning relationship” will become an increasingly dominant feature in the structure of our societies. (European Commission, 1995, p. 17; emphasis added)

Challenges are now addressed in terms of what could be called “the learning question”: how to bring individual freedom in line with the new necessities of the knowledge society. Evidence that the learning question started replacing the social question can be found in the way the European Commission’s report Making the European Area of Lifelong Learning a Reality (2001) articulates the double aim of freedom and security: both to empower citizens to move freely between learning settings, jobs, regions and countries, making the most of their knowledge and competences, and to meet the goals and ambitions of the European Union and the candidate countries to be more prosperous, inclusive, tolerant and democratic. (European Commission, 2001, p. 3)

232   Maarten Simons The thesis developed in the next sections is that freedom and security remain the twin objectives of European governments today; however, learning is replacing the social as the strategic relay between a new form of freedom and security.

The Assemblage of the Learning Apparatus Forms of Problematization In order to understand how lifelong learning became a reality in governing ourselves, we first draw attention to the way in which learning is problematized as an important issue for reflection and thought. Four related forms of problematization shaped in the previous century can be distinguished (see also Simons & Masschelein, 2008). At the end of the 1960s, challenges started to be posed in terms of the development of a “knowledge society” and “knowledge economy.” In this economy, knowledge functions as a “central capital,” the “crucial means of production,” and the “energy of a modern society” (Bell, 1973; Drucker, 1969, p. xi). Part of this line of thought claims that when professional activities begin to imply a “knowledge base,” workers become “knowledge workers.” In other words, it starts to make sense to address learning and continuing education as that which links these workers to the process of production, and, consequently, as something that requires adequate investment. What is at stake, then, in this first field of problematization is the capitalization of learning. For a second form of problematization, one may consider the notion of lifelong learning (éducation permanente), closely related to a broader concern for self-​realization that appeared at the end of the 1960s. The basic idea is that education should not be limited to the school and to a particular time in one’s life. Instead, education should allow all adults to face changes autonomously: that is, to “prepare mankind to adapt to change, the predominant characteristic of our time” (Faure et al., 1972, p. 2009). Part of this problematization of learning is the way adult education is reflected upon. Drawing on humanistic psychology, adult education becomes a defined challenge and is approached in terms of learning processes that require self-​direction from the adult learners themselves (Knowles, 1975). In short, learning is objectified as a condition for individual freedom, and people are addressed as being responsible for their learning. In other words, a responsabilization toward learning begins to take shape. Although related to the previous forms of problematization, the new educational and psychological expertise concerning learning processes offers a third one. Expertise based on cognitive psychology starts to reflect upon learning as processes of cognition, transforming information into knowledge. Shuell’s well-​known definition articulates these ideas very well: “[l]‌earning is an active, constructive and social process where the learner strategically manages available cognitive, physical, and social resources to create new knowledge by interacting with information in the

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    233 environment and integrating it with information already stored in memory” (Shuell, 1988). This suggests a kind of managementalization of learning: Learning appears as a process of construction that can and should be managed by learners themselves. Finally, in the early 1990s, the issue of learning goals starts to be discussed in terms of employability. Instead of lifetime employment of trained workers, the critical issue becomes the future potential of employees with a focus on their employability (Pochet & Paternotre, 1998). In this context, the notion of “competency management” emerges: Management and policy are no longer about performing functions (and finding workers that fit), but about developing competencies (and having workers that want to learn). In parallel to this line of thinking, the goal and method of education and training are being recoded in terms of competencies. In fact, competencies now refer to the intersection between (the organizations that provide) learning and (the requirements of) employability—​that is, they represent employable learning results. In this form of problematization, employability appears as a permanent concern that learners require in order to live a successful life. Of course, the term “learning” has a much longer history. What is new is that the term, now disconnected from issues of education and schooling, refers to a reality that is intelligible as a productive force which creates capital. From the learners’ point of view, it implies something for which they are and may be held responsible, something that can and should be managed, and something that produces competencies and self-​employability as a permanent concern. These forms of problematization have been combined and have found their material articulation in specific techniques, instruments, and procedures.

Material Inscriptions The most telling examples of material instances through which the governmentalization of learning takes shape can be seen by developments at the European Union level. In fact, we prefer to speak of the governmentalization of the European Union through the deployment of multiple technologies, rather than a growing étatisation of the European Union. This governmentalization does not start from the key social role of “institutions of modernity,” but begins explicitly from the strategic role of learners: “people, their knowledge and competencies, are the key to Europe’s future” (European Commission, 2001, p. 3). The main objectives are no longer to reinforce the social state through institutional reform and increase social mobility, but to enable learning mobility, enhance the range of learning opportunities, and reduce obstructions in a flexible state. The problematization of obstructions to learning has a subjective and objective side: It is approached both in terms of governing the self and others. On the one hand, lifelong learning is increasingly framed as a matter of motivation, while lack of motivation to learn becomes a governmental issue that must be resolved, for it poses a risk to both individual freedom and collective security (Ahl, 2008). Here, we notice a tactical alliance of governing with the new experts of learning that support

234   Maarten Simons people but also organizations, in their striving to remain employable and to embrace this required mobility, flexibility, and responsibility. Social work is no longer needed; instead, the excluded—​ranging from the unemployed, new migrants, underperforming workers, to troubled families and weak schools—​all now have to pass through learning support that acts upon their “will to learn.” However, all sorts of objective limitations to the ideal of a mobile life afforded by the right competencies is problematized, along with the learners as the producers and carriers of these competencies. Limitations imposed by national borders (in terms of national territories and national populations), as well as institutional limitations of confined and stable spaces (such as schools, universities, and factories) are all seen as obvious challenges. The focus is no longer on institutional change through modernization and planned progress. Instead, innovation and creativity become the main drivers of change. Achieving freedom and security requires an innovation-​friendly environment that disposes of all institutional barriers and, crucially, directly addresses the creative learning potential of citizens with their sense of initiative, entrepreneurship, and their ability to innovate (Council of the European Union, 2009, p. 4). A key challenge once learning has been (temporarily) completed is to develop and offer equipment that “objectifies” this learning: “identification, assessment and recognition of non-​formal and informal learning as well as on the transfer and mutual recognition of formal certificates and diplomas” (European Commission, 2001, p. 9). This is articulated very clearly in the different reference frameworks that Europe has developed. A case in point is the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) for lifelong learning: The EQF is a common European reference framework which links countries’ qualifications systems together, acting as a translation device to make qualifications more readable and understandable across different countries and systems in Europe. It has two principal aims: to promote citizens’ mobility between countries and to facilitate their lifelong learning. (European Commission, 2008, p. 3)

Whatever the length or the context of learning—​be it formal, informal, or nonformal—​ the learner should be able to prove to the demand side the value of the accumulated human capital. And the demand side—​ that is, companies and higher education institutions all over Europe—​should have a validation frame at its disposal or should be able to translate its needs for human resources according to a common reference framework. A key feature of the EQF, therefore, is its focus on learning outcomes: “a statement of what a learner knows, understands and is able to do on completion of a learning process” (European Commission, 2008, p. 3). This emphasis on learning outcomes implies that institutionally based qualifications related to official diplomas—​previously developed and used in the social state—​are no longer relevant for they mainly objectify length, domain, and aims of study. The focus now is on what is learned—​all the rest is unimportant. In line with this logic, we see the emergence of various kinds of assessment centers, where learning outcomes can be determined and graded, as well as a market of open badges, which guarantee that acquired outcomes are visible and certified, all in

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    235 view of helping learners to profile themselves (European Commission, 2013, p. 6). It is through these types of frameworks and practices that learning is inscribed as a reality, both for the individual that learns and for the outside world. The result of these material inscriptions is that the learning reality is from the outset calculable and results in new centers of calculation as well as centers of validation (see also Miller & Rose, 1997). Learning can become calculated in terms of required time, packaged and labeled in view of recognition and transfer, framed in view of qualification and certification, and articulated in a common language to increase mutual understanding. Through operations such as these, learning turns into an object of investment, a domain to be regulated, and a value to claim freedoms. As a consequence, learners are increasingly looking out for new (centralized) forms of authority to have the outcomes of their learning lives validated. The Europass program is an interesting example of a device that makes lifelong learning a reality and furthermore articulates the governmentalization and new authorization of Europe. In using the portfolio, citizens objectify themselves in terms of accumulated competencies and become involved in a permanent process of “self-​documentation” and “self-​marketization” in a new European realm (Tuschling & Engemann, 2006, pp. 462–​463). In contrast, the curriculum vitae (CV) offers a chronological overview of someone’s individuality by drawing upon the transitions of their social biography, which is an adequate device for a society of institutions with rather stable routes and locations. When lifelong learning becomes a reality, however, what learners need instead is a portfolio, which is not biographical, but serves as a profile that can acknowledge and define one’s permanent mobility and unique characteristics by capturing an intermediate learning balance. What supports the inscription of learning as a reality, besides these centers of calculation and validation and profiling tools, are centers of monitoring and feedback tools. A portfolio alone does not suffice to act as a lifelong learner. In addition, permanent feedback loops must be created to constantly monitor one’s learning balance and keep one’s profile up to date, as part of the self-​centered act of self-​regulation. The same holds true for learning member states. Comparing and ranking member states according to several performance indicators functions, on the one hand, to provide European agencies with feedback information on the total mobilization of Europe’s human resources (in comparisons to, for instance, the United States or Japan), and, on the other hand, to serve as a feedback instrument to mobilize member states and citizens and to make them responsible to improve their performance (Simons, 2014c). It should be stressed that benchmarking, like monitoring, functions as a strategy to fulfill the need for permanent feedback: “Where do I stand in relation to others?” (Larner & Le Heron, 2004, p. 227). Dashboards appear here as the appropriate tools to direct someone or something that is and should remain in constant motion. As far as these dashboards render intelligible the processes of lifelong learning, they can start to become “an obligatory passage point” in order for the European Union, the member states, and individual learners to come to know and regulate themselves. Self-​knowledge and self-​regulated learning therefore imply that one has to consider oneself as engaged in a permanent process of

236   Maarten Simons self-​mobilization or “competitive self-​improvement,” where each moment represents an opportunity to be creative and innovate (Haahr, 2004).

Strategic Response This short exploration of the governmentalization of learning can be concluded by mentioning two new “twin figures” that articulate and simultaneously stabilize the governmental concern with freedom and security through learning: entrepreneurship and flexicurity. These notions are not used as (theoretical) concepts or phenomena (to be observed), but as epistemological and strategical figures, for they both paradigmatically suggest the solutions or responses that are required, as well as summarize the set problems at hand. In addition, freelance can be added as a third figure to better demonstrate how the link between the entrepreneurial self and the securing of flexibility is strategically articulated. As far as self-​governing is concerned, the figure of the entrepreneurial self (and the entrepreneur of the self) best captures the way one is driven to capitalize the self and held responsible to manage one’s life in view of employability. This is nicely summarized by Gordon: The idea of one’s life as the enterprise of oneself implies that there is a sense in which one remains always continuously employed in (at least) that one enterprise, and that is part of the continuous business of living to make adequate provision for the preservation, reproduction and reconstruction of one’s own human capital. (Gordon, 1991, p. 44)

Entrepreneurship is not just a mechanical process of allocation and production. It also involves an “element of alertness”; that is to say, a speculative, creative, or innovative attitude to see opportunities in a competitive environment (Kirzner, 1973, p. 33). Entrepreneurship is a creative and risky business. But risk is no longer, as in the social state, something to be prevented or secured against; instead, it becomes the condition for success—​a kind of “stimulating principle” (Giddens, 1998). This entrepreneurship, which turns the self into a resource and asset, looks at risk as an opportunity and commits to creative and competitive self-​improvement in all spheres of life, thereby also becoming a new kind of civic virtue. Furthermore, this implies that the absence of entrepreneurship is not only seen as the root of numerous problems, but increasingly regarded as well as a lack of true citizenship. The figure of flexicurity plays a similar role at the governing of society level. The European Commission, along with several member states, adopted an “integrated flexicurity approach” in order to develop policies that support both flexibility and security—​to create “a situation in which security and flexibility can reinforce each other” (European Commission, 2007, p. 4). Whereas the social state was a paradigmatic articulation of full and stable employment, free and compulsory education, social protection,

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    237 and permanent tenured employment, the key components of the flexicurity state are permanent employability, lifelong learning and investment, incentives for activation, and reliable, flexitime contractual arrangements. The objective is to create a condition of both flexible security and secure flexibility. Freelance work appears in this configuration of governing as a strategic, paradigmatic figure that both includes entrepreneurial freedoms and the concerns with flexible employment. Freelancers or self-​employed persons are the ones taking care of their own business and self-​investment through learning and representation, and permanently look for opportunities to sell their expertise, products, or services. The freelancers’ liberty—​etymologically speaking, the ones whose “lance” is not sworn to a single king—​is what secures in various ways the required flexible labor market: They provide always up-​to-​date expertise, represent a highly flexible pool of competitive workers, and allow for dynamic human resource management. The figures of entrepreneurship, flexicurity, and freelance integrate the current forms of problematization concerning learning, as well as the tools and procedures previously discussed, and articulate the new dominating strategic response (or apparatus) implemented to face challenges today. The learning apparatus’s overall strategy is to promote individual freedom and collective security by inscribing learning as the relay between freedom and security. When the learning apparatus comes to replace the social apparatus as the dominating response, what occurs is a shift from thinking in terms of social mobility to learning mobility, from social (in)equality to inclusion/​ exclusion, from strategies of socialization with social norms as the key substance to strategies of lifelong learning with (capitalized) competencies as the key entities, and from set work protected by social rights and risks avoidance to a mobile life of opportunistic freelancing characterized by social recognition and risk-​taking. In Foucauldian terms, we could say that the learning apparatus is installed from the moment that learning—​and learned competencies—​start to function as both “unique signifier” and “universal signified” (Foucault, 1978, p. 154). This condition simultaneously implies that everything valuable can be expressed in terms of learning, while learning expresses all that is valuable. It is important to stress once again that by developing and providing these frameworks, measurements, and tools, the European Union, as well as its agencies and member states, all gain new forms of authority, and hence become “powerful.” To conclude this section, we would like to highlight three elements in the operation of the learning apparatus. First, analogous to the social apparatus, scientific knowledge development does not occur outside the learning apparatus. Giddens’s work illustrates how inclusion and exclusion as well as empowerment, rather than social (in)equality and social mobility, form the starting point. Risk is no longer uniquely framed in social terms, where it might denote something against which society, and specific social groups especially, need to be protected. Risk is now also an opportunity that calls for creativity and innovation, and therefore requires entrepreneurship and investment in human capital: “[t]‌he guideline is that, when possible, investment in human capital should have priority over offering immediate economic support” (Giddens, 1998, p. 130). Poverty, and many other forms of exclusion, are now approached in research and policy as a lack of adequate

238   Maarten Simons human capital; consequently, they convey a sense of irresponsibility toward or inability to manage/​regulate one’s learning. Therefore, according to Giddens, the point of departure is no longer social (in)equality and “post-​factum redistribution,” but inclusion and exclusion, and hence having adequate learned competencies (Giddens, 1998, p. 114). In all these cases, investment in human capital is fundamental. Second, the learning apparatus should not be viewed as an expansion of the school system that arose in the 18th century. Instead, what we notice today is school education gradually being transformed in response to the learning apparatus’s growing dominance (Simons & Olssen, 2010). Numerous examples point in this direction. A notable case is that formal education increasingly subscribes to qualifications frameworks and favors the assessment of individually acquired competencies over examinations in view of obtaining diplomas. In addition, educational institutions must now assume that students never enter education as a blank sheet, and they must guarantee that competencies (or qualifications) acquired elsewhere be recognized. These examples clarify how the forms of problematization and related techniques and tools concerning learning are also entering schools and universities. But this does not mean that school education is gradually being absorbed into the learning apparatus. That this is not the case can be seen, among other things, in the way in which learning to learn (but also entrepreneurship education) is becoming one of the school’s core objectives; in other words, education is called upon “to shape” the new learning citizen. With this alliance, the least one can say is that school education is being forced to reinvent itself in line with constraints from the learning apparatus. Third, governing in the name of learning also results in a particular experience of time and space (Simons & Masschelein, 2008). The present moment, envisioned within the social apparatus, is an occasion to bring about profound changes as part of social planning; it refers to a break with the past in view of a planned future. On the other hand, with its focus on innovation, the learning apparatus no longer assumes a linear conception of time but a momentary one: resources available today for creative use. This approach sees the past as currently available, the present as momentarily opportune, and the future as virtually present. In addition, governing in the name of learning characterizes space as motion in environments, rather than merely as confined or located places. This ecological understanding, instead of a “locational” understanding, implies an experience of being (not fully) part of an environment, of being (more or less) mobile, of having (more or less) resources (i.e., rich or poor environments), and of facing openness (or obstructions). It is no longer about social mobility (and the experience of moving up or forward), but about flexibility (and the condition of being mobile). In order to navigate different environments, feedback loops and permanent ecological positioning become vital for the learner. In contrast, the social citizen is regarded as positioned in enclosed locations, moving between these places throughout her lifetime, and in need of orientation tools (such as institutionally based degrees and social norms and standards) to navigate her life. What the learning citizen needs instead when navigating through different environments are tools for permanent positioning—​that is,

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    239 global positioning systems and dashboards, to know where she stands and to assess permanently her available competencies.

The (Digital) Learning Apparatus in Action This final section looks more closely at two effects of the learning apparatus: globalization or, more specifically, different globalization effects of governing in the name of learning, and personalization, or how the learner is turned into a person. When considering the components that make up the learning apparatus, we see globalization playing a role in at least four different ways. First, “globalization” is a term that plays a specific role in the political discourse on learning. For example, there is constant reference to a so-​called global competitiveness that calls for countries, and the European Union as a whole, to invest in the learning of their populations. Related to this reasoning is the recurring reference to the importance of allowing the free movement of capital, goods, and ideas, as well as humans and their human capital, on a global scale. These continual references to globalization evoke a reality which lends a sense of direction, legitimacy, and urgency to this new governmental rationality. Besides this epistemological role, the term “globalization” plays a strategic role as well. As already indicated, the governmentalization of learning cannot be dissociated from old and new actors, who become governmentally relevant as a result of new centers (of monitoring, validation, and calculation). The European Union is a good example of this, as well as the member states that now start to redefine, reprofile, and relegitimize themselves in the name of learning. The new role of Europe—​or better: the European Union as a governmental entity—​is an example of a more globalized, or a new regional, form of central governing. Third, globalization includes an ethical dimension. Namely, it plays a role in the form of self-​government, and in the relation of the self to the self, promoted throughout the learning apparatus. For the figures of the lifelong learner or the entrepreneur of the self, who continually invests in their own competencies, globalization refers to an operation of scaling up and expressing “spatial opportunities” (or distances) in view of mobility (Simons, 2018). The increase in scale is about the expansion of space—​or rather, the environment—​within which mobile life takes place. The ideal for the lifelong learner is to live a global life, which means no longer being bound by borders or other obstacles of localities, no longer being embedded in one place but embodying a state of permanent mobility or flexibility. As a global learner, part of this ideal is to be able to use uniform and direct assessment and global communication systems, and to be free from the delaying effect of translations due to cultural or other local(ized) particularities. Being global means for the learning citizen what being modern—​and breaking free from tradition and other temporal constraints—​means for the progressive, socialized citizen. Fourth, globalization within the learning apparatus can also be observed at the technological

240   Maarten Simons level. Globalization here reveals itself primarily through the technologies that enable the governmentalization of learning to be rolled out. Techniques, procedures, and tools are increasingly digitalized and conducive to online and distance learning. Two dimensions of this governmentalization can be distinguished: the governmentalization of digital devices, on the one hand, and the governmentalization of online (learning) environments, on the other. The governmentalization of devices becomes visible when, for example, the accessibility and openness of digital technologies and learning tools are problematized: “open technologies allow All individuals to learn, Anywhere, Anytime, through Any device, with the support of Anyone” (European Commission, 2013, p. 3, emphasis in original). The basic premise is that physical or localized learning and educational resources are always exclusive in terms of who can learn, in terms of the place and time of learning, but also in terms of resources and support. Digital learning technology, it is argued, can in principle be inclusive, but efforts must be made to ensure openness and accessibility to promote the learning freedom of all. The rationale behind this problematization that understands learning freedom in terms of openness and accessibility is not about equal opportunities or social mobility, but foremost about fine-​tuning the learning apparatus’s strategy to further “liberate” the mobilization of competencies. At this point, the availability of (online) platforms becomes of strategic importance (see also Poell et al., 2019). In a digital world, the platform can be understood as providing a sense of online stability, and for that reason supplies the learner with a solid online basis for further action (i.e., it “links” the learner with what is provided). Creating, protecting, and updating these (learning) platforms becomes a governmental concern to secure online learning freedom. Complementary to this “platformization” and liberation of learning is an immediate governmental urge to look after authorized forms of assessment, certification, and validation that ensure learning outcomes/​competencies are unambiguously determined and allow for global communication. The free learner requires “qualifying authorities” (European Commission, 2013, p. 6) to assure that what is learned is determined and validated in such a way that the recognition and acknowledgment of competencies is assured as globally as possible. The need for new nonlocal (learning) authorities gives an additional impetus to the further deployment of the learning apparatus. Global, here, connotes foremost an absence of restrictions in terms of openness, accessibility, and authorization. The second dimension of the governmentalization of learning technologies can be apprehended by noticing the governing mechanisms built into the online learning environments themselves. These environments are (at least partly) automated, based on algorithms and learning analytics, in order to create adaptive and customized learning trajectories and increase learning efficiency for the learner: “collecting traces that learners leave behind and using those traces to improve learning” (Duval, 2012). What takes shape is an “algorithmic governmentality” (Rouvray & Berns, 2013) that operates by creating new profiles; it is not only about profiling learners to act upon them in an adapted and differentiated way but also about making new profiles out of big data from online behavior (disregarding any subjects or subjectivity), and using these profiles with

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    241 probabilistic reasoning to modify environments and change behavior in a predicted way. This results in a kind of digital behaviorism that does not govern by directly acting upon individuals, but instead steers their actions and choices through anticipation by manipulating the online environment within which these actions occur. An example of this is using “nudges”—​and other insights from behavioral economics—​in learning environments to make learners do certain things (Knox et al., 2019). This subtle stimulation through environmental modification is not about forbidding certain behaviors or providing financial incentives but adding something to the environment to make a preferred behavior or choice more probable (assuming, of course, more or less automated processes and reactions from the one who acts and chooses). Even nudging itself can be automated (“algorithmic nudging”) and become part of an “algorithmic management” system that uses individual worker data to influence—​even in real time—​their behavior and choices through personalized strategies (Möhlmann, 2021). Uber’s rewarding system, as well as Deliveroo’s smartphone messaging management system, works along these lines. We want to stress two aspects of the governmentalization of learning related to digitalization and onlinization. First, when governing mechanisms are built directly into online learning environments and become partly automated based on algorithms, this suggests that these mechanisms might also start to learn. This form of learning carried out by governing mechanisms themselves—​ as specific types of machine learning—​is an example of how learning is built into digital modes of governing. The governmentalization of learning is complemented with the “learnification” of governing (Biesta, 2010). Second, globalization in modes of digital governing moves beyond the profiling of predefined (statistical) populations and given social categories, to a large and borderless field of big data, with techniques of data mining and inductive statistics. The globalization of data, profiles, and techniques foremost indicates that a (localized) world of fixed entities, given substances, and defined movements is left behind. Besides the learning apparatus’s operational effects resulting in multiple dynamics of globalization, we have to point at another effect: personalization, understood here as a novel way to shape human subjectivity and act as subject (Simons, 2021; Simons & Masschelein, 2021). The operation of personalization starts with the assumption that we are all individuals but differ as persons, and it insists that these differences be taken into account. Here, the focus is on the process through which someone is turned into a unique or singular person; how someone comes to understand the self as a (unique) person and starts to act or govern the self accordingly. Personalization is not only about focusing on the differences among individuals, but about making and remaking these differences. It relies therefore on a profiling that makes personal differences visible in order to act upon them. A profile shows a social identity by using differential or determining features. Everything is in principle eligible for profiling, as long as it is possible to express certain distinctive or determining features. In the learning portfolio that is gradually replacing the diploma, someone is not shown “frontally” but “in profile” by listing all obtained competencies. The specific set of acquired competencies is what personalizes the learner and creates her (learning) identity. It is of vital importance for

242   Maarten Simons social recognition that there exists a stage or platform on which visibility can be created. Social media are exemplary here. Your profile only has meaning or any reality when it has viewers (which can include yourself) that—​through likes, emojis, and shares—​ recognize and acknowledge you. The habitat of the personalized subject is clearly no longer a normalized society, but, drawing on Tiana Bucher, a “programmed sociality” (Bucher 2018). The profiling ideal, and this is a constant pursuit, is to profile yourself in such a way to ensure that how you see yourself corresponds with how others perceive you. The term “person” and its derivatives, such as uniqueness, identity, and authenticity, refer exactly to this ideal. It is worth recalling here the original Latin word persona, which referred to a mask, and more specifically, to the character or role of the actor on stage. It is precisely here that feedback appears as the reigning technique of power. In order to know who you are and how you continue to profile yourself, you constantly need a reaction to your profile. What is required is a conscious mobilization of others in order to confirm your existence. Instead of a need for rules and order (sovereign power) or a need for normality (disciplinary power), the need for recognition (feedback power) determines the process of personalization. While the norm asks for discipline and the law for submission, the profile requires constant feedback (Simons & Masschelein, 2021). With personalization, the learning apparatus further stabilizes its strategy and installs a logic that questions or even replaces other apparatuses. As soon as learners start to understand themselves as unique persons, they probably will start to criticize the rules (of juridical and administrative power) and the norms (of disciplinary power) for not taking into account their individual uniqueness. In the world of the personalized learner, norms and rules indeed pose a personal injustice (for the implied moralization: Pykett, 2009). The personalized learner does not ask to be treated equally, based on norms or rules, but wants to be treated differently. In addition, this explains a certain tension that confronts personalized learners: The expressions of freedom, discourses of independency, and acts of liberation in the name of personal differences all tend to forget the dependency on profiles, platforms, and feedback loops as well as the preprogrammed social life in which these differences are produced (see also Feuz et al., 2011). In addition to the different globalizing effects already described, the digital learning apparatus therefore simultaneously produces and stresses interindividual differences. These profiled differences in turn become new pathways to self-​knowledge and understanding, instilling in us a sense of uniqueness and need for recognition. Personalized learners are not modern, but global; they are not involved in the difficult struggle to emancipate themselves from the regressive effects of tradition, but in an equally challenging fight to empower themselves from the immobilizing effects of locality or embeddedness.

Concluding Thoughts In describing the learning apparatus, we have tried to explain the omnipresence of learning by pointing at the assemblage of several material and discursive components,

Personalization, and the Learning Apparatus    243 along with the resulting changes in how we are now both governed and governing ourselves. In this concluding section, we will focus on emerging tensions in the operation of the learning apparatus. In Europe, states as well as the European Union have started to problematize themselves in terms of learning; they now mainly see themselves as situated in a changing environment and focus on its available resources (and no longer predominantly relate to their own history), are engaged in innovation and competitive self-​improvement (and no longer follow the track of modernizing a national tradition), have started to understand and represent themselves through profiling (for which nearly everything can be used, as long as it is differentiating), and are welcoming international frameworks, comparative studies, and global platforms (in order to find recognition and an impetus for new investments). This self-​problematization might give rise to new kinds of nationalism, but these are less about protecting given birth rights, territory, and population than about assembling identities as part of constructing and reconstructing new (national) profiles. We could think of populism as the political version of personalization. As discussed earlier, there is also evidence that school and higher education become reassembled both in terms of their internal organization as well as their aims and role. Yet in addition to that, there is a growing governmental concern toward education as being regional, or national, strategic “sites of learning.” This is less a matter of realizing an agenda of modernization and social equality through (public) education, but of involving these sites in an opportunistic agenda of innovation; the concern is less with marking them as key forces of progress and social adaptation, but reaching out to them as strategic sites of productive learning embodying openness and mobility. The new European Union’s ambition to “build a European Education Area by 2025”—​which no longer only focuses on learning but reintroduces education as a whole—​evidences this governmental concern (European Commission, 2020). These developments clarify that, while the learning apparatus and its globalizing effects become dominant, “formal education” is not disappearing but—​similar to states—​being reassembled. The world of the learning apparatus, of course, is not a world without conflicts and tensions. An obvious example is what has been problematized as brain drain (and brain gain), and which has resulted in national or regional strategies to reduce the mobility of the learner, to nudge the global mindset of the learner, and to develop legislation and funding schemes that in one way or another frame learning in legal or binding terms in order to protect human capital investments. Another example already mentioned is the tension between governing through rules and laws, which per definition make abstraction of interindividual differences, and personalized learners, who want their unique needs taken into account and may perceive any regulation or other impositions as personal injustice. Personalization may help to understand the increased focus on sensitivity toward the other, the use of trigger warnings to prevent personal harm, and the concern with the safety of spaces. Along similar lines, the learning apparatus and its personalization effects can result in social categories of class, ethnicity, and gender—​ concepts that play a key role in the social state—​becoming part of profiling activities and the focus of a person’s need for recognition. At such a point, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, but also race and gender no longer belong to an individual’s background (a background being what is given and can be shared), but become part of the person’s

244   Maarten Simons foreground (what makes them different if they are recognized). If this is the case, social struggles and structural conflict may become reinscribed in the ethical-​political register of personal (in)justice and recognition, profiled identities, and all sorts of appropriation. It all becomes personal for the reason that it has been made personal. In the same way that when history becomes heritage, and the present is no longer conceived as a break but an opportunity, questions can arise about the origin and previous ownership or appropriation of the inherited material and immaterial goods, and about how or even to what extent they can remain resources to be used today (or should be cancelled out). In a similar way, with social media “the social” seems to be more present than ever today. But the social in these media most of the time does not represent an issue that necessitates governmental intervention, nor is it (already) treated as a medium itself through which to govern. The digital, (pre-​)programmed or algorithmic logic of the social media and the mechanisms of recognition are to a large extent (still) perceived as a natural domain that requires laissez faire. A last example of a possible tension is that cognitive work and learning, being to a large extent online work and learning, may result in different sorts of immobility. Cognitive work can be done (from) anywhere, which often means it is homework. Paradigmatic is the freelancer staying at home, working from home, and having to stay home because of work. To a certain extent, this is telework or working and learning at a distance, although there is no longer a distance when all other parties involved work and learn online and at home. The least one could say is that the home becomes a strategic site in the digital learning apparatus, with homework and home delivery being crucial, and with leaving the house and home becoming more and more of a challenge. Despite her global mindset and a new sense and enjoyment of learning freedom, the personal learner is dependent on all sorts of governing technologies and instruments. Foucault would probably argue that the tendency to forget these dependencies is precisely what all apparatuses share in common and have as consequence—​“having us believe that our ‘liberation’ is in the balance” (Foucault 1978, p. 159). It is as if the liberation from normalizing institutions, confined places, and strategies of social planning unleashes an overwhelming sense of “personal freedom to learn” that makes the operations of new mechanisms and strategies go unnoticed, if not self-​evident. After all, who can be against learning, against being a person, and against living a global life? We hope, nevertheless, to have made this question sound less rhetorical than it might appear.

Notes 1. For the elaboration of this approach, and part of the analysis presented in this chapter, we rely on Simons and Masschelein (2008), Simons and Olssen (2010), Simons (2014a).

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chapter 11

F ie ld Theory Beyond t h e Nation Stat e Julian Hamann

How National Is Bourdieusian Field Theory? Pierre Bourdieu developed his sociology mostly on domestic issues of European societies. He had a particular focus on French society, and within France on education and higher education (Bourdieu, 1988, 1996b; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977, 1979), but his research also attended to the French class society (Bourdieu, 1984, 1999) and to literature and the arts (Bourdieu, 1996a, 2017), to name just a few other examples. Although foundations of Bourdieu’s theoretical work were laid by his early empirical studies of Kabyl life in Algeria (Bourdieu, 1962, 1995), and he occasionally discussed processes of field internationalization (cf. Bourdieu, 2005, pp. 223–​232), it is probably fair to say that large parts of his research—​and, importantly, his theorizing—​have been informed by phenomena within national orders. Fields, for Bourdieu, were primarily national fields. Because the empirical point of reference for Bourdieu’s research was usually national and often Francocentric, several “nationalist” assumptions are engraved into his theory (cf. Schmitz & Witte, 2020). For example, he conceptualizes societies as national societies (Bennett et al., 2009, pp. 234–​250). In addition, the two principles of social differentiation, classes and fields, are both situated within the national field of power and the national social space, respectively (Schmitz & Witte, 2017; Vandenberghe, 1999). Not least, Bourdieu sees the mechanisms and institutions responsible for the legitimation and reproduction of social order as granted, organized, and controlled by the nation state (Bourdieu, 2014). Despite such “nationalist” assumptions in Bourdieu’s own theorizing, a diagnosis of methodological or, indeed, epistemic nationalism would be misguided if it was aimed at the field-​theoretical research program per se. By principle, the research program of field theory goes beyond the work of Bourdieu himself

Field Theory Beyond the Nation State    249 (Wacquant, 1992a). It does not exhaust itself in the mechanical application of the same theoretical concepts to ever-​new empirical phenomena. In the following I will join other scholars who have rejected the claim that field theory is impeded by epistemic nationalism and who have argued that such a claim neglects the very epistemological foundations of the field-​theoretical research program (cf. Go & Krause, 2016b; Krause, 2020; Schmitz & Witte, 2020). A core principle of the field-​theoretical research program is the relational co-​ constitution of theory, methodology, and epistemology (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). According to this principle, theory is always deeply engrained in methodological and epistemological considerations and vice-​versa. Thus, theoretical concepts like “field” do not come ready-​made with definitions, waiting to be mechanically applied and filled with empirical content. Rather, field-​theoretical concepts convey a particular way of studying social phenomena. The scope of such phenomena is an empirical question. Indeed, any a priori commitment to “the national” and “the global” is overcome by field theory’s relational approach to start not from entities, but to establish relevant research objects through relations between units of analysis (Bourdieu, 1998; cf. Vandenberghe, 1999). According to the relational approach, the local, regional, national, transnational, or global character of empirical phenomena is not determined by their very essence, but with reference to the phenomena’s relations to other phenomena (cf. Krause, 2020). Rather than starting from actors, the field-​theoretical research program invites us to start from relationships between actors and to investigate the common orientations or stakes that define the relationships between them. A field, then, is the structured realm that emerges from relations between actors. Because both the construction of relevant stakes and actors’ relations may be located on and between different geospatial scales, the concept of “field” is neither theoretically nor empirically committed to a specific scale. What is more, the very claim to a specific geospatial scale is often enough part and parcel of actors’ struggles and stakes. Higher education provides ample evidence for this: The national orientation of higher education systems has to be perceived as a historical specificity. For instance, in Germany, a field of higher education that is oriented toward the national scale emerged a mere 200 years ago. Before that, large parts of the German-​speaking world were fragmented according to territorial principalities and ecclesiastical confessions. What was at stake for universities was the favor—​both in symbolic and material terms—​of princes and municipalities (cf. Rüegg, 1996). The very notion that the geospatial realm toward which universities are oriented is actually a “national state” was itself a matter of symbolic struggles. Those struggles were resolved with the proclamation of a German national state in 1871, a political project to which universities contributed the national narratives that were needed for imperial Germany (Gengnagel & Hamann, 2014; Ringer, 1990). Hence, if universities today compete for funding and status in national fields of higher education (Hicks, 2012), their orientation toward the national scale has to be historicized as a result of symbolic struggles. Other actors contest this national orientation. For example, the European Union claims that the definition of good research and the distribution of resources can also be organized

250   Julian Hamann at the European level (Baier & Gengnagel, 2018; König, 2017). Ranking agencies and media corporations even go beyond the European scale and try to engage universities in a global competition for status and visibility (Brankovic et al., 2018, 2023; Kauppi, 2016; Wedlin, 2010). The example of higher education conveys, first, that the geospatial range of fields is a historical specificity and, second, that the very question which scales a field is oriented toward is often a contested issue in the field itself. The earlier example also illustrates a crucial third point: Different scales can matter at the same time (Krause, 2017; Witte & Schmitz, 2021). Not only can national higher education systems remain relevant if a relatively autonomous European field of higher education emerges. What is more, a strong national sphere can actually be a vital feature of a European field (cf. Schwarz & Westerheijden, 2007). Fields can be oriented toward different geospatial scales at the same time, and different scales can be of varying significance for a field. Indeed, it is likely that a field’s orientation toward one scale affects its orientation toward other scales (Sapiro, 2018). The field-​theoretical research program allows us to see that local, regional, national, transnational, and global orders are produced according to the same principles, that is, as a social space that is structured by relations between actors and defined by their common orientation toward specific stakes. Just as national fields emerge when stakes are constructed on the national scale (cf. Bourdieu, 1994), processes of transnationalization are propelled by consecrating authorities that encourage actors to orient themselves toward stakes on the transnational level. More specifically, such processes of transnationalization imply, first, a (gradual) change of consecrating authorities and institutions; second, a change of the level on which actors orient their struggles; and third, a change in the constellation of agents involved (Sapiro, 2018). Such changes throughout processes of transnationalization are illustrated by current developments in fields of education. In many regards, fields of education remain deeply embedded on the national scale. Education has a reproductive function for the class structure of national societies; it is anchored in national education systems, institutions, and policies; career paths for teachers are national; and, at least in some countries, education is funded by the state. Not least, education is indispensable for maintaining the symbolic power of the nation state, for example, because it issues certificates, and cultivates national languages and cultures (Bourdieu, 2014). Yet the national orientation of fields of education is currently challenged. These challenges can be observed in education policy, where institutions and authorities of consecration on the national level now compete with other actors on regional, international, and transnational scales. What is at stake in these competitions is the definition of standards for good education, standards that are, for example, also claimed by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (cf. Lawn & Lingard, 2002). Accrediting agencies and political authorities like the OECD and the European Union exert forces of transnationalization on fields of education (Dugonjic-​Rodwin, 2021; King, 2007). Through the lens of field theory, such forces of

Field Theory Beyond the Nation State    251 transnationalization do not necessarily contradict the national orientation of educational fields: As I have argued earlier, fields can be oriented simultaneously toward the national, the transnational, and other scales. For example, PISA integrates fields of education on a transnational scale (Grek, 2012); at the same time, PISA results are widely deployed to shape national education policies (Rautalin & Alasuutari, 2009; Takayama, 2010; Waldow et al., 2014); and not least, PISA results are recontextualized on the local level according to specific constellations of actors and institutions (Hartong & Nikolai, 2017). Thus, processes of localization, nationalization, and transnationalization play out at the same time. The examples illustrate that there is neither a zero-​sum relationship between the national and the global nor are these processes necessarily unidirectional (cf. Sassen, 2006). The recent developments in higher education and education explain why research on these very fields has played an important role in pushing field theory beyond the nation state and dismissing the national as an a priori analytical category. Yet the move beyond the national scale has not been limited to studies on higher education and education. It has been a major concern in field analysis in general. In the last 20 years, a vibrant literature has formed to investigate phenomena beyond the national scale (cf. Go & Krause, 2016a; Schmidt-​Wellenburg & Bernhard, 2020a). This research perspective, for which I adopt the label “post-​national analysis of fields” (introduced by Krause, 2020), does not take the national for granted as a self-​evident scale of social life, and it does not ascribe to it any inherent ontological or epistemological qualities. For the literature concerned with the postnational analysis of fields, the national is not irrelevant per se, but the empirical focus is on contexts that go beyond the national scope. While the nation state played a central role, indeed, for Bourdieu’s own research, the postnational take on the field-​theoretical research program assumes an agnostic stance toward the national. The following sections attend to this literature, focusing first on its empirical foci and analytical priorities, and then providing an overview over theoretical contributions to the postnational analysis of fields.

The Field of Postnational Field Analysis: Empirical Foci and Analytical Priorities Empirical contributions to the postnational analysis of fields cover a wide range of research objects. They attend to the transnational diffusion and reproduction of religious or humanitarian virtues and values (Dromi, 2016; Krause, 2014; Petzke, 2016), to the transnational orientation of professions like journalism (Christin, 2016; Hussain, 2017) or law (Dezalay & Garth, 1996; Vauchez, 2008; Vauchez & de Witte, 2013), or to supranational relations in societal spheres like economy (Lebaron, 2010; Maeße, 2018; Mudge & Vauchez, 2016) and culture (Buchholz, 2016; Casanova, 2004; Kuipers, 2011).

252   Julian Hamann Two empirical foci are of particular importance in postnational field analysis. First, contributions are often concerned with political entities, among them nation states and their transnational colonial pasts (Go, 2008; Steinmetz, 2008; Wilson, 2016), relations between nation states (Adler-​Nissen, 2013; Schmitz et al., 2015), or the emergence of political entities on the supranational scale (Adler-​Nissen, 2011; Büttner & Mau, 2014; Cohen, 2011; Kauppi, 2018). Second, perhaps the most prevalent empirical focus for postnational field analysis are fields of education and higher education. Contributions are concerned with transnational education policy instruments like PISA (Mangez & Hilgers, 2012; Rawolle & Lingard, 2008; Stray & Wood, 2020) and highlight how transnational developments and fields affect educational fields on the national scale (Hartong, 2020; Marttila, 2020; cf. Dugonjic-​Rodwin, 2021). With a view on higher education, scholars have noted how universities are oriented toward global struggles for reputation (Münch, 2014); how global, transnational, and national orientations overlap in academic fields and disciplines (Heilbron et al., 2008; Heilbron, 2014; Krause, 2016); and how devices like rankings enforce fields to orient toward transnational stakes (Hamann & Schmidt-​Wellenburg, 2020; Marginson, 2008). Such an overview of empirical research objects across individual contributions provides valuable insights. It suggests that the empirical foci of postnational field analyses are similar to the foci of field analyses that are primarily concerned with fields on the national scale. In particular, the overview illustrates that political fields and fields of (higher) education are a core theme in both literatures. Yet, despite these insights, it is more rewarding to distinguish contributions to postnational field analysis not according to empirical foci but regarding analytical priorities, that is, with a view on the different attempts to transcend the national as the ex-​ante geospatial unit of analysis. Although such distinctions are often gradual, they convey an analytical topology of the field of postnational field analysis. In the following, I will propose four levels of distinction. One level of distinction concerns different approaches to geospatial scales. A large part of postnational field analyses focuses on the unilateral impact that transnational fields have on national fields, illustrating, for example, how national fields are structured by transnational influences (Hussain, 2017), how national policy fields respond to transnational assessments (Stray & Wood, 2020), how transnational fields intrude national fields (Petzke, 2016), how transnational field effects realign fields and professions that have hitherto been oriented toward the national scale (Schmidt-​Wellenburg, 2017), and how national fields open up (Kuipers, 2011) or even dissolve in the face of transnational influences (Mangez & Hilgers, 2012). These studies are complemented by a second body of literature in which relations between transnational and national scales are conceptualized not as unilateral, but as bilateral. Scholars have noted, for example, how transnational and national fields affect each other and overlap (Krause, 2016), how national fields draw from transnational fields and simultaneously affect their emergence (Dromi, 2016), or how transnational fields have an impact on national fields, but the latter act back on the former (Stampnitzky, 2016). A third strand of literature pursues a slightly different approach to geospatial scales. Here, contributions focus less on relations between different scales and more on relations between positions within

Field Theory Beyond the Nation State    253 transnational or global fields. This is the case in studies that examine how transnational or global fields structure relations between universities (Münch, 2014), central bankers (Lebaron, 2008), bureaucratic professionals (Büttner & Mau, 2014), national literatures (Casanova, 2004), nation states (Go, 2008), countries as sites of cultural production (Buchholz, 2018), or how positions and fractions in the fields of economics or the social sciences develop global orientations (Heilbron, 2014; Maeße, 2018). It is worth pointing out that at least two other possible approaches to geospatial scales are much less frequently pursued: Few studies are concerned with “upward” unilateral relations according to which a national scale predominantly impacts a transnational sphere (but see Bigo, 2007; Cohen, 2011; Go, 2020). Even less prevalent are postnational field analyses that abandon the national scale altogether and focus on relations between, for example, transnational and regional fields (but see Krause, 2014). In addition to different approaches to geospatial scales, a second level of distinction can contribute to an analytical topology of postnational field analysis. The field-​ theoretical research program rests on the assumption that different field-​theoretical concepts relate to and build on each other (Wacquant, 1992b). Just like a study of habitus has to be complemented by the concept of capital because habitus are structured by capital endowment, comprehensive analyses of fields can be expected to rely on a number of theoretical concepts that are not only neighboring but indeed analytically related to the concept of field. Yet postnational field analyses seem to draw on a rather limited arsenal of theoretical concepts.1 The most prominent additional concept mobilized to construct transnational fields is capital, understood as common stakes that orient struggles in a specific field. Some contributions draw on established forms of capital, revealing, for example, how cultural and economic capital structure the transnational field of education policy (Mangez & Hilgers, 2012), how transnational fields translate professional expertise into political capital (Schmidt-​Wellenburg, 2017), or how central bankers’ positions in the global field of power are structured by political and economic capital (Lebaron, 2008). Other studies identify new forms of capital, for example, ethnographic capital in the transnational field of colonial states (Steinmetz, 2008), informational capital structuring the European field of security agencies (Bigo, 2007), macro capital structuring the positions of countries, regions, or cities in a global field of cultural production (Buchholz, 2018), literary capital in the global field of literature (Casanova, 2004), and meta-​capital structuring the relation among nation states in a global field of power (Schmitz et al., 2015). Another theoretical concept regularly mobilized to complement the concept of field in postnational analyses is the concept of autonomy, which describes the degree to which fields have a logic of their own and the capacity to organize field-​specific practices (cf. Krause, 2017). Contributions concerned with the relative autonomy and heteronomy of transnational or global fields examine, for example, the porous internal and external borders of the European legal field (Vauchez, 2008), the heteronomizing effects of globalization on fields of national educational policy (Lingard et al., 2005), how the relative autonomy of different national TV fields structures their incorporation into a transnational TV field (Kuipers, 2011), and how researchers in the social sciences and

254   Julian Hamann humanities mobilize the academic autonomy of their own field as a discursive strategy to gain advantages in the transnational field of European research funding (Baier & Gengnagel, 2018). While the concepts of capital and, to a lesser degree, autonomy are regularly mobilized in postnational field analyses, only very few contributions go beyond this conceptual basic equipment. For example, Bourdieu’s key concept of habitus rarely complements the concept of field (but see Adler-​Nissen, 2008; Büttner & Mau, 2014; Vaara & Faÿ, 2012; see also Carlson & Schneickert, 2021 on the concept of habitus on transnational contexts). Other field-​theoretical concepts are even less prevalent. Illusio and doxa, describing the belief in field-​specific values and orientations and the unquestioned acceptance of field-​specific principles of order due to an alignment of mental and social structures, are mostly neglected or only mentioned in passing (but see Petzke, 2016; Schmitz & Witte, 2017). Beyond different approaches to geospatial scales and the use of complementary field-​ theoretical concepts, two additional levels of distinction can contribute to an analytical topology of the field of postnational field analysis: A third level of distinction concerns the methodological design of the respective studies. Many postnational field analyses are conceptualized as single case studies concentrating on one transnational or global field, for example, the transnational field of higher education (Marginson, 2008; Münch, 2014), the transnational field of European social law and social policy (Feritkh, 2020), or the global field of power (Lebaron, 2008; Schmitz et al., 2015). Few contributions are conceptualized as multiple case studies with a focus on different fields and the relations between them. Exceptions are studies on how relations between transnational, national, and regional fields in the social sciences structure actors’ positions and the prestige of research objects (Krause, 2016), how gatekeepers regulate access to established positions in the academic field compared to the field of stand-​up comedy (Hamann & Beljean, 2021), or how different national TV fields are structured and relate to a transnational TV field (Kuipers, 2011). A fourth and last level of distinction that can convey a topology of postnational field analyses sheds light on the methods mobilized in the literature. A large share of contributions draws on qualitative, text-​based methods, the majority being interview transcripts (Adler-​Nissen, 2008; Mudge & Vauchez, 2016; Stray & Wood, 2020) but also discourse analyses of documents (Baier & Gengnagel, 2018; Maesse, 2020), as well as interpretative analyses of archived records (Dromi, 2016; Wilson, 2016) and memoirs (Stampnitzky, 2016). Only few other qualitative methods are mobilized. For instance, ethnographic approaches are rather uncommon (but see Krause, 2014). In comparison to qualitative methods, quantitative or quantifying methods are less prevalent in postnational field analyses. Exceptions are occasional applications of descriptive statistics (Buchholz, 2018; Marginson, 2008; Münch, 2014) and methods of geometric data analysis (Baier & Gengnagel, 2018; Dugonjic-​Rodwin, 2021; Lebaron, 2008; Schmitz et al., 2015). In sum, the methodological topology of postnational field analysis seems somewhat similar to analyses of primarily national fields. This tentative topology suggests some lessons to learn for the study of education and higher education. The most obvious lesson is that the field-​theoretical research

Field Theory Beyond the Nation State    255 program is by no means limited to the national scale. The overview illustrates a rich diversity of empirical studies of transnational and global fields. Yet the topology also highlights some issues and orientations that have thus far been neglected. Postnational field analyses of (higher) education could attend to these issues in the future. First, research should pay more attention to fields “below” the national scale, a perspective that promises valuable insights particularly into systems in which (higher) education policy is also located at the state level. Research should also consider multilateral relations between fields oriented toward the local, the state, the national, and the transnational scale. Second, the overview conveys what I coin “conceptual isolationism,” according to which postnational field analyses rarely make use of field theory’s full conceptual arsenal. Approaches that are more comprehensive in conceptual terms promise a more saturated and profound field-​theoretical account. To increase their theoretical saturation, postnational field analyses of (higher) education should therefore take into account concepts related to the concept of field. Third, the topology suggests some rather untrodden methodological paths to follow. Both multiple case studies, in which fields are compared or examined according to their relation to each other, and quantitative and quantifying methods are less prevalent and could be mobilized more often in postnational field analyses of (higher) education. Postnational field analyses in general and analyses of fields of (higher) education in particular cannot only draw from the existing literature reviewed in this section and attend to the issues that have been neglected thus far. Future research can also build on several theoretical and conceptual innovations that have been developed in postnational analyses of fields. Because the literature on postnational field analysis does not always explicitly leverage these innovations, the theoretical and conceptual contributions will be highlighted in the following section.

Theoretical and Conceptual Innovations in the Postnational Analysis of Fields Attempts to move field theory beyond the national scale have yielded a number of theoretical and conceptual innovations. These innovations proceed from two gradually different strategies of theorizing: One strategy is to rescale existing field-​theoretical concepts to make them suitable for postnational analyses. This strategy modifies said concepts but leaves their fundamental analytical architecture more or less unchanged. A second strategy of theorizing proceeds from the insight that field-​theoretical concepts have to be revised more fundamentally to study transnational and global phenomena. The distinction between the two strategies is gradual because some contributions rescale certain field-​theoretical concepts while revising other concepts more fundamentally. Both strategies share the insight that field-​theoretical concepts are not only generative

256   Julian Hamann for analyzing transnational relations and phenomena but indeed for transcending ex-​ ante oppositions between different geospatial scales (cf. Go & Krause, 2016b; Schmitz & Witte, 2020). Contributions to postnational field theory that pursue the first strategy of theorizing rescale theoretical concepts to be adequate to study transnational or global phenomena but leave the fundamental analytical architecture of said concepts unchanged. Rescaled for transnational or global fields, field-​theoretical concepts facilitate insights, for example, into the emergence of fields in terms of a differentiation of a social space from existing spaces (Buchholz, 2016; Wilson, 2016); into struggles, competition, and power relations within transnational fields (Krause, 2016; Petzke, 2016); into internal struggle or external disruption as sources for change in transnational fields (Go, 2008); and into the effects transnational fields exert on different geospatial scales (Mudge & Vauchez, 2016; Stampnitzky, 2016). It is telling to review these innovations in light of my previous diagnosis of the conceptual isolationism of postnational field analysis. While the overview in the previous section has revealed that empirical research rarely makes use of the full theoretical arsenal of field theory, the examples here illustrate successful attempts to rescale some more general conceptual approaches of field theory—​for example, the focus on field effects, on the emergence of fields, or on struggles and power relations. The strategy of rescaling has not only been applied to theoretical concepts but also to methodological principles. Scholars have pointed out that the field-​theoretical research program provides researchers with “a style of research with a distinct epistemology and methodology” (Schmidt-​Wellenburg & Bernhard, 2020b, p. 2) For example, one methodological principle that has been fruitfully rescaled to be applicable to fields beyond the national scale is the principle to actively construct empirical phenomena as objects of investigation, instead of taking them for granted. With a view on transnational or global phenomena, this requires asking whether and how transnational or global practices differ from national practices, and how such practices relate to one another (cf. Bigo, 2020; Hartong, 2020). Another methodological principle of field theory is to attend to the generative characteristics of social phenomena. Rescaled for phenomena beyond the national scale, a focus on the notion of time and processes of becoming facilitates questions on the historical development of transnational or global practices and categories (cf. Go, 2020; Maesse, 2020). In sum, the strategy of rescaling both methodological principles and theoretical concepts has demonstrated a remarkable potential for illuminating phenomena and processes at transnational and global scales. Gradually distinct from the first strategy of rescaling is a second strategy of theorizing that sees the need for more general conceptual revisions. Attempting to avoid a “deductive reification” (Buchholz, 2016, p. 31) of a one-​sided perspective from the Global North, this strategy aims to move beyond the national scale by introducing not gradual, but more or less fundamental innovations that significantly extend the field-​theoretical research program. In the following, I will review four such innovations that emerge from this strategy of revising. A first significant extension of the field-​theoretical research program introduces the scale across which fields extend as a hitherto neglected property of fields alongside

Field Theory Beyond the Nation State    257 which fields can be distinguished (Krause, 2017). According to this analytical proposition, it is an empirical question whether fields are initially located on one scale and then expand (“below” or “above” the initial scale) or whether they are located across different scales from the outset (see also Benson, 2005; Schmitz & Witte, 2020). As a case in point, the higher education field illustrates that fields can be historically located simultaneously on a transnational and on a subnational scale before being nationalized. Treating their scale as a variable property of fields has analytical benefits because it facilitates several systematic questions (cf. Krause, 2017). These questions concern, first, relations between different fields on the same scale (e.g., relations between national fields of education and national political fields); second, relations between fields of the same kind and on the same scale in different contexts (e.g., relations between national fields of education in different countries); and third, relations between fields of the same kind on different scales (e.g., relations between fields of education on the local, national, and transnational scale). Although the overview in the second section has conveyed that postnational field analyses attend to a variety of different relations on different geospatial scales, this approach allows for a more systematic take on such relations. Treating the scale of fields as a variable property facilitates a second important innovation for the field-​theoretical research program. An examination of the scale of fields comprises a systematic distinction between intranational, cross-​national, and transnational relations between fields. Such a distinction of field relations has considerable analytical leverage. Not least, it allows for a differentiation of the central field-​theoretical concept of autonomy: Questions about the relation between fields on the same geospatial scale (e.g., the field of education and the political field in the United Kingdom, or the fields of education in the United Kingdom and Romania) attend to what has been coined “horizontal autonomy” (Krause, 2017). Questions about the relation between fields of the same kind on different scales (e.g., the fields of education in the United Kingdom and the European Union) focus on what has been described as “vertical autonomy” (Buchholz, 2016). Distinguishing vertical and horizontal autonomy facilitates, first, a more differentiated view on the relative autonomy of fields. For example, the UK field of education may be less autonomous from the UK political field than some of its national counterparts are from the political fields in their contexts (horizontal autonomy), but it may be more autonomous from the European scale compared to other national fields of education (vertical autonomy) (cf. Grek, 2009; Grek & Ozga, 2010). Second, a differentiation of the concept of autonomy facilitates insights into transnational and global phenomena. For example, global fields can emerge not by constituting their independence from other global fields, but by becoming relatively autonomous from the logics of various national fields of the same kind (cf. Buchholz, 2013). A different approach to the autonomy of transnational or global fields introduces the notion of “weak fields.” Compared to the concepts of vertical and horizontal autonomy, the notion of weak fields is less distinct from the original field-​theoretical concept of relative autonomy. It describes a type of transnational field that entails elements of both settled and emerging fields. Like settled fields, weak fields are characterized by densely institutionalized settings in which established professionals compete upon commonly

258   Julian Hamann valued stakes, and like emerging fields, weak fields are interwoven with neighboring fields and characterized by a low degree of internal differentiation (Vauchez, 2011). The “weakness” of transnational fields thus refers both to their interstitial position as they are merged into other fields that are constituted more firmly and to the blurriness of their internal boundaries (cf. Vauchez, 2008). Although the overview in the previous section has conveyed that some postnational field analyses mobilize the concept of autonomy, differentiations of the concept allow for a more fine-​grained approach to relative autonomy. The full analytical potential of these theoretical innovations has yet to be tapped by empirical analyses. A third innovation that emerges from the strategy of revising theoretical concepts can be seen in attempts to employ the analytical category of a global field of power which relates, for example, financial elites (Lebaron, 2008, 2010), hegemonic empires of the past (Go, 2008), or current nation states and cultures according to their similarities and differences (Schmitz et al., 2015). A concept to relate fields to each other—​that is, a field of fields—​and thus a key component of field theory, Bourdieu has used the field of power mostly as a theoretical reference in studies on individual fields, but not explicated it in a dedicated study. What is more, he located the field of power exclusively on the national scale where it is framed by the nation state (cf. Bourdieu, 1996b; see also Schmitz et al., 2016). Attempts to revise this concept for postnational analyses unfold considerable analytical potential. A revised concept of a field of power is particularly important for an approach coined generalized field theory (Schmitz & Witte, 2020). Instead of rescaling theoretical concepts, this approach attempts to release field theory from any ex ante assumptions on geospatial scales. Consequently, the key concept of the approach is a generalized field of power that discards not only epistemic nationalism, but any epistemology that takes geospatial scales for granted (e.g., internationalization, globalization, or cosmopolitanism). A field of power that has been revised accordingly suggests “the global” as the widest possible empirical and most general analytical frame of reference for research on social phenomena (Schmitz & Witte, 2020; Schneickert et al., 2020; Witte & Schmitz, 2021). Although some studies have put the concept of a global field of power to empirical use, the previous section has shown that most empirical contributions focus on transnational fields that span only selected parts of the world (i.e., the Global North). Postcolonial strands in the field-​theoretical research program also pursue the strategy of revising field-​theoretical concepts. From their efforts emerges a fourth substantial attempt to release the field-​theoretical research program from the specific geospatial context it has been developed in. Generally, postcolonial approaches challenge us to rethink hegemonic Western knowledges and to reconsider an epistemic unconscious from an alternative standpoint (Go, 2017). Although Bourdieu himself did offer a theory of colonialism and a systematic understanding of its effects and logics (Go, 2013), the field-​ theoretical research program reveals imprints of hegemonic Western epistemology. Such imprints are illustrated, for example, by a distinct analytical focus on transnational constellations in the Global North. Another example of the imprints of Western epistemology is field theory’s taken-​for-​granted distinction between differentiated

Field Theory Beyond the Nation State    259 and nondifferentiated societies. This distinction, symbolized by Bourdieu’s work on the precapitalist, agrarian society of Kabylia, on the one hand, and by his work on the strongly differentiated French society, on the other hand, organizes a number of oppositions—​between Western and non-​Western, heterogeneous and homogeneous, complex and simple, modern and archaic (Hilgers & Mangez, 2014). Postcolonial approaches attempt not only to replace the distinction between differentiated and nondifferentiated societies with a continuum of more or less differentiated societies. They also show that the type of differentiation that field theory is concerned with is, in fact, a particular form of functional differentiation that has been developed from Western societies. Postcolonial approaches thus draw attention to alternative types of differentiation that concern language, ethnicity, or territory (cf. Steinmetz, 2016). In sum, postcolonial perspectives are a powerful tool for reflexive postnational field analyses and a critique of the illusions of scholastic and epistemic universalism.

Conclusion: Some Open Questions for the Postnational Analysis of Fields Bourdieu’s own research was mostly focused on fields oriented within the national scale. Yet the field-​theoretical research program per se does not suffer from epistemological nationalism. Indeed, any a priori commitment to specific geospatial scales is overcome by field theory’s relational approach to start not from entities, but to establish relevant research objects through relations between units of analysis. According to this methodological core principle, empirical phenomena are not local, regional, national, transnational, or global in essence. Rather, their geospatial range is to be determined empirically with reference to the phenomena’s relations to other phenomena. Taking this principle seriously, the postnational analysis of fields has developed into a vast body of literature over the last two decades. It attends to various empirical foci, has pursued a number of analytical priorities, and brought about important theoretical and conceptual innovations. Research on education and higher education has played an important role in pushing field theory beyond the nation state because recent developments in (higher) education have made it necessary to dismiss the national as an a priori analytical category. My contribution has demonstrated that the postnational analysis of fields has realized remarkable analytical leverage. Yet a few open questions remain. I will conclude with an empirical, a methodological, and a theoretical question that should be addressed by future research. An empirical question that remains to be answered by postnational analyses of fields concerns functional equivalents of the state on the transnational or global scale (cf. Schmitz & Witte, 2020). On the national scale, the state has a central role in the (re-​)production of the material and symbolic order of societies. The “grip of the state”

260   Julian Hamann (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 2) lies in its ability to impose universal symbolic forms and principles of vision and division. The state’s ability to impose principles of social order ranges from the structure of time (i.e., the school calendar, secular and religious holidays, etc.) over the distinction between public and private space to the definition of social problems (Bourdieu, 2014). Not least, there is a close complicity between the state and educational institutions in the (re-​)production of social order (Bourdieu, 1996b). In its attempts to abandon “the national,” the postnational analysis of fields has successfully moved beyond the nation state as an a priori geospatial scale. Yet the focus on geospatial entities has not corresponded with similar attention to the second meaning of the state as a site of material and symbolic power. Future research should therefore systematically inquire functional equivalents to state power on transnational or global scales. It should also examine the extent to which these functional equivalents can impose symbolic visions and divisions that might be as universal as those imposed by the nation state. With its focus on the symbolic power of entities like the European Union, the OECD, or media corporations like Bertelsmann or Times Higher Education, the study of transnational educational and political fields has thus far delivered the most promising insights in this regard. A methodological question for postnational analyses of fields are geospatial scales “below” the national. Recapitulating the literature reviewed in this contribution, it is obvious that most attempts of postnational field analysis either go “above” or “across” the national scale. In other words, postnational field analysis thus far focuses either on transnational or on global fields. Less attention has been paid to local or regional fields, and existing work on the matter has not been incorporated into the body of literature. This bias is remarkable if we call to mind that, according to the relational principle, empirical phenomena do not have a geospatial essence. Assuming that the current scholarship takes this principle seriously, there can only be two reasons for the prevalence of transnational and global fields in the existing literature: Either fields “above” the national have a greater appeal to scholars, if only because transnational and global objects of research promise greater dividends in the academic field (Bourdieu, 1969). Or fields are indeed geospatially extensive rather than contractive; that is, they tend to extend to spaces equal to or “above” the national scale but less commonly contract “below” the national. Such fundamental issues of the spatial expansion and contraction of fields should be addressed more systematically by postnational field analysis. More systematic research on local and regional fields would be a first step toward addressing this question. A theoretical question future research should attend to concerns the geospatial scope of class (cf. Bennett et al., 2009). Bourdieu’s theory is one of the few modern sociological theories that integrates two principles of social differentiation: the structure of fields and the structure of classes. Crucially, both principles are linked on a theoretical level through the concept of structural homology, which designates the parallels between the oppositions within fields and the oppositions in social space (i.e., the structure of class society). The degree to which these parallels manifest is an empirical question and concerns the relative autonomy of the field in question. Bourdieu’s studies of the French fields of (higher) education give examples for a rather pronounced structural

Field Theory Beyond the Nation State    261 homology between the structures of social space and specific fields: In the academic field, differences separating the academic faculties are structurally homologous to the economic and social differences that form the opposition between the subordinate and dominant classes in French society (Bourdieu, 1988, p. 41). The field of the Grandes Ecoles is structured to contribute to the reproduction of French class society (Bourdieu, 1996b, p. 285). A postnational analysis of fields that concentrates only on fields runs the danger of dissolving the theoretical link between fields and social space as two related principles of social differentiation. What is at stake here is not only theoretical comprehensiveness. An empirical approach to possible homologies between transnational or global fields and the—​national or transnational—​social space is also much better equipped to understand the positions and oppositions within the fields in question. Future research should therefore attempt to avoid the decoupling of field and social space.

Note 1. This observation also holds true for field analyses primarily concerned with fields on the national scale. Thus, the kind of conceptual isolationism diagnosed here is no peculiarity of the postnational analysis of fields.

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chapter 12

Inclusive Edu c at i on, Gl obaliz ati on, a nd N ew Phil os oph i c a l Pe r spectives on S o c ia l Ju stic e Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez

Introduction This chapter aims to uncover the theoretical and normative assumptions underpinning the overall inclusive education framework, currently promoted by a series of international organizations, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Our objective is twofold: first, to show how much, as a system of ideas (Hall & Taylor, 1993) or a normative and cognitive framework, this “référentiel” (Muller & Surel, 1998) bears the mark of the new social grammar; one that is specific to the reflexive societies of globalized modernity (Beck, 2003, 2006; Beck et al., 1997; Dubet, 2009a). Second, we offer critical elucidation of the new expectations of justice that are emerging in this new configuration. Given that inclusive education now occupies a central place in the orientations proposed by the international institutions intending to outline a horizon for education, such as UNESCO (2015) and the OECD (2018), we felt that the subject demanded reflection. Over the past decade, the semantics of inclusion have progressively shaped most international conventions and declarations on education (Husson & Pérez, 2016;

268    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez Norwich, 2014), and now they seem to redefine the frames of meaning in which educational justice issues are formulated. The main reforms enacted alongside the post–​World War II democratization of education have been based on the normative principle of equality of opportunity. This principle combined a recognition of merit and talent (as opposed to inherited privilege) with the goal of universal access to a common schooling, via the equitable distribution of resources (Baluteau et al., 2018; Dupriez & Verhoeven, 2006). At the turn of the 21st century, new criteria emerged for evaluation in terms of justice, reflecting a growing interest in what education produces (Dupriez & Verhoeven, 2006). Initially focused on learning outcomes, this consequentialist perspective was, however, soon extended to other aspects of human life—​such as citizenship, participation, and employability. In the course of the past decade, these developments seem to have coalesced into a coherent model: the inclusive education framework. It seems to us that this model updates the language used to express desirable perspectives for education. Beyond its significance for the educational sciences, the inclusive education framework has been subject to a range of sociological interpretations, sometimes seen as a process of educationalization of social policies (De Paepe & Smeyers, 2016), other times as a new normativity serving New Public Management logics of performativity (Maroy, 2018), or neoliberalism (Laval et al., 2011). Other works analyze the varied policy translations this global framework is subject to (Hardy & Woodcock, 2015). This chapter intends to offer an alternative reading. We argue that this new framework is in line with the new social grammar emerging from the transition from first modernity’s national societies to the reflexive society of globalized second modernity (Beck, 2003, 2006; Beck et al., 1997; Giddens, 1994). This interpretation conceptualizes globalization as a profound transformation of the spatial and temporal coordinates of social exchanges. Because of the broadening of the scales of interdependence and the acceleration and uncertainty that mark the relationship to temporality, there is a reconfiguration of both the social bases of the construction of identities and the process of production of society (Touraine, 1995), generating increasing demand for reflexivity. In this sense, globalization demands a new metatheory of the social that departs from the parameters of first modernity (Beck, 2006; Dubet, 2009a). These transformations inevitably affect both socialization processes and representations of the role attributed to education in the social contract—​of which the inclusive framework bears the marks. As a corollary to this first hypothesis, we argue that these transformations raise new problems and expectations in terms of justice (Bernal Gonzalez et al., 2021), so that the conceptual tools available to problematize educational justice are in need of refreshing. To contribute to this endeavor, this chapter will draw on three conceptions of social justice—​redistributive, recognitive, and capability-​based—​that are central to the contemporary debate in social philosophy. This allows us to identify their respective abilities to equip both researchers, and actors in the public debate, to address the normative issues at stake in education, in the context of second modernity. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first briefly introduces the parameters of the inclusive school framework, as it emerges from international guidelines and

New Philosophical Perspectives    269 scientific literature. The second returns to the constitutive elements of the social grammar of globalized reflexive modernity, highlighting its ongoing links to this framework. The third examines the heuristic potential of each of the three main approaches to social justice (redistributive, recognitive, and capability-​based) for thinking about educational justice in a globalization context.

Inclusive Education: A Global Framework for Education While the now-​dominant inclusive education model emerged out of a concern for special needs educational provision, its reach now extends well beyond the field in which it was conceived. Originating in a denunciation of the negative side-​effects (in terms of segregation and inequity) brought about by the existence of separate schools dedicated to special needs education, and the consequent recommendation to integrate children with special needs to mainstream establishments (Thomazet, 2009), the inclusive education model has quickly become an important landmark. Its focus has been considerably expanded, so that it now designates any pupil permanently or temporarily deviating from school norms and expectations—​regardless of whether this is because of a health problem, learning disability, or difference in social or cultural background (Reverdy, 2019). In recent interpretations, the inclusive framework becomes more universal still, since all pupils, considered in their singularity, are targeted (Ebersold, 2014). Against the backdrop of a fresh appreciation of learner diversity, now seen as an asset rather than a deficit (Rose & Meyer, 2022; Rouse 2008), the stated aim is to ensure that every pupil, regardless of individual characteristics (physical, cognitive, emotional, etc.), has the right to participate and succeed at school, by providing optimal development conditions for their own unique potential (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2015; Plaisance 2013). In this sense, the inclusive education project proposes a reformulation of the right to education—​one that is rooted more in recognition of human diversity. In this perspective, the well-​being, dignity, and success of all (OECD, 2018; UNESCO, 2015) establish themselves as a new normative horizon. Correlated to this, the inclusive framework is very often associated with that of global citizenship education (UNESCO, 2015), which both encourages the development of intercultural competences and stresses the school’s role in building a positive relationship with other cultures. This objective is accompanied by an exhortation to change educational systems and organizations. Rather than pupils with disabilities being asked to fit in with school norms and expectations, schools are now asked to make themselves accessible and inclusive; they are invited not only to become more sensitive to learners’ cognitive, physical, or emotional variability but also to constantly improve their ability to respond to this variability appropriately and effectively (European Agency for Special Needs

270    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez and Inclusive Education, 2015). UNESCO advocates, for example, for adequately and equitably resourced, non-​ discriminatory, and “learning conductive” educational environments for every learner (UNESCO, 2015, p. 8). This sensitivity to diversity includes a pedagogical component, recommending the differentiation (and even personalization) of teaching practices (Ebersold, 2010), as well as an organizational component encapsulated in the notion of the learning organization (Ebersold, 2012), which refers to a stance of constant reflective evaluation of educational practices. This attention to learner diversity is also supported by extrinsic concerns regarding economic and social participation (Ebersold, 2017; Maroy, 2018). The aim is to ensure that, through education, everyone has an “equal” right to participate in human development, considered in all its economic and social dimensions (OECD, 2018). UNESCO (2015) emphasizes education’s decisive role as a central lever for human development, the expansion of rights and sustainable development; inclusive education is also presented as a safety net against forms of social vulnerability and future risk of exclusion. The OECD further associates inclusive education with the development of human capital (Robeyns, 2006); this is identifiable in the terms “skills and employability.” It promotes numerous mechanisms for evaluating the performance of education systems, in terms of equity and citizenship as well as economic impact (Centeno, 2019; OECD, 2018). In both cases, there has been a shift toward “extrinsic” criteria in the focus of evaluation in terms of justice, with a fundamental insistence on what education produces for individuals and communities.

Inclusion and the New Grammar of Globalized Reflexive Societies This section aims to situate this inclusive education framework within the social conditions of its emergence. The main milestones of the social grammar of globalized reflexive societies are introduced succinctly and linked to the theoretical presuppositions underpinning this framework.

A New Relationship to Space and Time Many sociologists characterize globalization as the disruption of the spatial and temporal parameters within which social life takes place. First modernity is associated with a “national perspective” (Beck, 2006, p. 11) crystallized by the figure of the nation state and posited as both the container, and the horizon, of social life (Beck, 2006; Dubet, 2009a). The concept of social integration embodies this representation of social order and solidarity, which unfolds within a bounded national space (Dubet, 2002, 2009a). With globalization, this spatial framework is transformed through both an extension

New Philosophical Perspectives    271 of the scales of cultural and symbolic exchange (Appadurai, 2015) and the economic exchanges linked to capitalist globalization (Amin, 1992; Wallerstein, 1990). At the same time, the temporal markers of first modernity (built around notions of progress and planning) are also undergoing transformation driven by the acceleration of circulation (Appadurai, 2015). This context is also characterized by rising uncertainty in the face of global risks (Beck, 2003), unpredictability of the future, and a questioning of the idea of progress. Rosa (2014) conceptualizes this change of temporal regime using the concept of acceleration—​which he argues is intrinsic to the very dynamics of modernity. Acceleration impacts every sphere of life, driving new moral imperatives connecting speed, performance, and recognition. In this way, first modernity optimism turns into an anxious relationship with the uncertainty of the future, generating an imperative for individuals to constantly keep up. The inclusive education framework is clearly based on this new grammar of space and time. Its spatial horizon is the world society, and it seeks to open pupils up to the diversity of cultures, preparing them to exercise world citizenship. In terms of temporality, it is more a matter of enabling each individual to develop their potential throughout life than of providing individual pupils with once-​and-​for-​all resources that will enable them to find their place in the social structure. It is all about equipping the individual with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable them to cope with novel situations and develop their agency, in a changing world (OECD, 2018). Evidence of this new temporal grammar can be found in the semantics of skills, particularly in the term “transformative competencies” (OECD, 2018)—​which can be defined as dispositions demanding enactment (Genard, 2015)—​as well as in the new emphasis on “learning to learn” as a reflexive and incremental view of learning.

Culture, Otherness, and Construction of Identities Culture, hitherto perceived as national and territorialized, is now seen as being in a constant state of flux, an endlessly evolving configuration that results from encounters with other worldviews. Beck sees in it a new cosmopolitical horizon based on a principle of additive inclusion of differences (Beck, 2006, p. 116) that allows for the construction of a contextual universalism (Beck, 2006, p. 120) in which differences are situated, rather than denied or hypostasized. This is the representation conveyed by the international institutions responsible for disseminating the inclusion framework (UNESCO, 2020). Similarly, identities are increasingly thought of in terms of hybridization; the intensification of exchanges leads them to disengage from assigned spatial contexts and integrate the plurality of others’ perspectives into their own construction. This “dialogical imaginary of the internalised other” (Beck, 2006, p. 56) calls for particular dispositions, including empathy, the ability to put oneself in the place of the other, the semiotic skill to be able to interpret the culture of the other, the dialogical ability to both draw a global map of the diversity of cultures, and to situate one’s own society and culture within it (Beck, 2006).

272    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez At the same time, the socialization process is undergoing change. Where first modernity organized it as early programming aimed at the integration of social roles linked to stable social positions (Beck, 2003; Dubet 2002), globalization-​reflexive societies must develop the ability to manage multiple (potentially contradictory) normativities (Beck, 2003, 2006). Socializing an individual therefore means teaching one to build bridges between the plural universes of meaning encountered, and working on oneself in order to construct a biographical unity; this demands both reflexive and postconventional skills (Dubet, 1995, 2002, 2009a; Verhoeven, 1997). The inclusion framework bears the mark of these parameters, as much in the positive relationship it aims to instill toward diversity, and in the development of the intercultural, deliberative, and critical skills associated with global and active citizenship.

Vulnerability and Empowerment These mutations are part of a more fundamental transformation of the representation of the human being, conceptualized by Genard (2013) as a capacitating anthropology. Where first modernity drew a clear legal line between capable and incapable citizens, second modernity tends to conceive of the human being as at once both capable and vulnerable. The care paradigm (Tronto, 2009) expresses the imperative of acknowledging vulnerability as well as the need to accommodate it through care mechanisms. Mirroring this, the capacity of each human being is seen as a potentiality, capable of “expanding” or “shrinking” (Genard, 2013, p. 46), depending on the social and institutional contexts in which it is deployed. The inclusive framework is shot through with these semantics of vulnerability, potentialities, and empowerment (OECD, 2018). This mutation also brings with it a new relationship with institutions (especially educational ones), which are increasingly thought of in terms of affordance (Genard, 2015)—​that is, their capacity to support the development of individual potential.

Inequalities and Domination While contemporary sociology has not exactly abandoned the modern project of analyzing inequalities, it no longer indexes them exclusively to position occupied in the social structure. Instead, inequalities seem “diffracted” into a range of dimensions (social position, gender, ethnicity, race, etc.) and indicators (Dubet, 2009a), and these are constantly evaluated in order to measure the distance of each person from the norms that define inclusion. As a result, public power now focuses less on inequality of places and more on obstacles to participation. This shift explains the salience of the concept of discrimination in the denunciation of injustices (Dubet, 2010). The inclusive education framework reflects this attention to inequalities of participation (rather than of condition) as well as to the struggle against all forms of discrimination (Dubet, 2010; Ebersold, 2010). At the same time, new forms of social domination are emerging (Martuccelli, 2004). These are formulated in terms of identity assignment, stigmatization, or alienation, and

New Philosophical Perspectives    273 conceived as deprivation of access to rights, or an inability to construct oneself as an autonomous and responsible subject. Mirroring this, inclusive education advocates access to rights, respect, and dignity for all, and positive subjectivation conditions.

From Integration to Social Cohesion Lastly, second modernity involves a transformation of society’s modes of production. Dubet (2009a) highlights the decline of the modern representation of social integration, which is giving way to one of social cohesion. Beyond the neoliberal interpretations to which it is subject, this concept refers to a new way of thinking about social order, as a “process coming from below, as an effect of social practices” (Dubet, 2009a, p. 134). Conversely, the notion of integration evokes a stable structure in which social cohesion is the open-​ended result of actors’ involvement in the production of social arrangements. This grammar of social cohesion is strongly present in the inclusive framework, which considers the social contract a system of dynamic and generalized cooperation demanding each person’s participation in building economic and social well-​being (Dubet, 2009a; Ebersold, 2010; Maroy, 2018). *** The inclusive school framework is thus fully in line with the parameters of the new social grammar of reflexive globalization societies. Inseparable from the discourse on lifelong learning, this framework places individual training into a new temporality: rather than being represented as a stage delimited in time, education becomes a continuous incremental process of learning and self-​development—​thanks to educational environments that are responsive to learner diversity. Inclusive education is aimed at an individual whose singularities must be recognized. This individual is considered in terms of personal vulnerability and personal potential, and must be offered support and guidance toward self-​fulfillment. The individual is also, undeniably, a singularized person (de Singly, 2004), called upon to interact with multiple spaces of socialization. The inclusive school sets out to guide each individual toward autonomy and develop their agency, equipping them to become decision-​makers and action-​takers in a pluralistic and changing world. It is no surprise, then, that inclusive pedagogical models emphasize critical, dialogical, and reflexive skills (Beck, 2006). Lastly, inclusive education is thought of as a lever for human development and social cohesion—​notions that symbolize an unstable social order to be constructed, in perpetual development.

Inclusive Education Through the Prism of Three Theories of Justice In addition to leaving plentiful room for autonomy and self-​fulfillment in a social world seen as open and bearing the mark of the inclusive education framework, this

274    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez new social grammar also calls for a renewal of social justice conceptions. Having focused on equalizing both places, and the resources to access them, theories of justice are turning toward issues of recognition, self-​fulfillment, and development of the capacity to act. The two most convincing theoretical tools for understanding these shifts are recognition theory (Honneth, 1999, 2000, 2002), which focuses on the social conditions of self-​fulfillment, and the capability approach (CA), which focuses on real freedom to carry out the life courses that are personally valued (Sen, 1992, 1993, 1999). As we shall see, these two ways of redefining the horizon of justice undeniably reflect the individualized and capacitating grammar of the second modern era. That said, the concern for equality and the redistributive dimensions of justice (as thematized, in particular, by Rawls, 1971) has deserted neither the education field as a whole, nor that of inclusive education; it has, however, shifted in ways that may be connected to this new social grammar. In what follows, we explain how these three approaches conceptualize the social justice question, and then examine their heuristic and critical potential for considering questions of educational justice (particularly as posed by the inclusive education framework).

The Redistributive Approach to Justice and Reformulations of the Principle of Equal Opportunities In his “Theory of Justice,” John Rawls (1971) sets out to clarify the conditions for a just society, that is, to specify the equitable terms of social cooperation. The Rawlsian model is a compromise between the principles of equality and freedom. Described as distributive, his approach aims to formulate rules to guarantee fair distribution of social goods. It essentially targets fair allocation of primary goods: “rights and freedoms, power and opportunity, income and health, self-​respect” (Rawls, 1971, p. 62) to the broadest possible range of individuals, yet taking care to never harm those who have least. It seeks to use this equitable distribution to guarantee equal opportunities of access to different socioeconomic positions, on the basis of merit and talent (Arnsperger & Van Parijs, 2003; Rawls, 1971). Though Rawls never produced a theory of educational justice, his general principles offer a pertinent evaluation grid for the examination of educational institutions (Michiels, 2017; Pourtois, 2008). Incidentally, this conception underpinned most educational reforms of the second half of the 20th century, upholding both the principle of de jure equality (against the supposedly natural hierarchies of the “Ancien Régime”) and that of meritocratic equality of opportunity, while aiming to guarantee equal access to schooling for all, irrespective of background, and success at school based on individual merit rather than social conditioning. During the 20th century, this ideal translated into a set of policy principles (Dupriez & Verhoeven, 2006): equal access (equal right to education, considered a fundamental right); equal treatment (equal schooling conditions

New Philosophical Perspectives    275 for all); and, later on, compensatory policies (corrective distribution of resources with the aim of restoring equity). Though this distributive perspective remains present in dominant ideas about the aims of education (including the inclusive school framework), it is currently undergoing a number of shifts in meaning. First, legal equality clearly persists, as a normative principle. The inclusive school framework is loud and clear in stating that it aims to make the universal right to education a reality, by eliminating all barriers to it (UNESCO, 1994). This time around, though, the translation of the normative principle into one of action takes on a more differentialist tone. Equal access is thus reformulated as the right of everyone, as a singular being, to school participation (Ebersold, 2010; Maroy; 2018). The “no-​one left behind” leitmotiv associated with the inclusive framework translates this accessibility imperative to all singularities. The principle of equal treatment becomes one of equity of treatment, demanding both recognition and differentiation of each learner’s specific needs, and expecting educational organizations to adapt in order to lead everyone to some form of success (Ebersold, 2017). The principle of equality of resources also remains, though it moves toward equality of achievement at the end of a training period (Dupriez & Verhoeven, 2006). By emphasizing the role played by a common core of competences in subsequent development of the life course, the egalitarian resourcing perspective incorporates an extrinsic, consequentialist perspective that is also discernible in its insistence on the “right to participation in economic and social welfare” (UNESCO, 2015). This consequentialist shift is also notable in its emphasis on the contribution made by education to participation in economic and social well-​being (UNESCO, 2015). The search for a more egalitarian society (in terms of equality of places) thus seems to be giving way to a principle of equal opportunities for everyone to participate in society to their fullest potential (Ebersold, 2017; Maroy 2018). The principle of meritocratic equality of opportunity is also very much still with us, insofar as the idea of merit remains a powerful fiction (Allouch, 2020; Dubet, 2004). More than ever, this is now formulated as an individual right to participate, from the earliest age, in a fair competition (free from any social or circumstantial influence) for access to the best places. It also translates into a kind of moral imperative that education should contribute to optimal development of each individual’s capacities. It is as though this principle of justice were internalizing both the open-​ended temporality and the capacitating and incremental representation of identity construction that are specific to reflexive globalization societies. This dynamic redefinition of the equalization of opportunity can also be found in texts promoting positive guidance (OECD, 2018) throughout life. Meritocratic equality of opportunity is deployed in an extended biographical temporality, presented as the right to benefit, at each stage of training, from social conditions that guarantee the best possible match between real opportunities and talents. Lastly, it is as though the logic of performativity, specific to the new governance (Maroy, 2018), were placed at the service of an ideal of equity. This is one reading of

276    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez the development of new accountability mechanisms that call on educational organizations to become reflexive as to their ability to achieve objectives, particularly equity objectives.

Recognitive Justice and Education The theory of recognition developed by Axel Honneth (2002) is presented as a counterpoint to Rawls’s liberal egalitarianism. Instead of the desocialized individualism of liberalism, he proposes a contextualized anthropology that stresses both human rootedness in networks of interlocution and human vulnerability (Michiels, 2017). And, rather than proposing a “substantive conception of the good life,” he reflects on the “indispensable conditions for its free realisation” (Michiels, 2017, p. 74). According to Honneth, these conditions concern the complex social recognition processes that are essential to the production and maintenance of a positive self-​image (psychological integrity) and social integration. Conversely, the experience of (social and institutionalized) contempt hinders self-​realization and the exercise of real freedom (Honneth, 2002). As a critic of Rawlsian resourcism, Honneth (2002) argues that a society’s justice is measured not so much by its ability to eradicate inequality as by its “ability to guarantee conditions of recognition in which the formation of personal identity, and thus individual fulfilment, can take place under good enough conditions” (Honneth, 2002; translation mine). In centering self-​respect and the social conditions necessary to the achievement of integrity and freedom, this approach thus echoes the individualized grammar of reflexive societies. Recognition theory presents as a normative reconstruction method, aiming to detect expectations of justice as they are expressed in social institutions and struggles. Demands for recognition are always indexed to a given social and historical context (Honneth, 2002); the recognitive approach thus proposes a contextualized ethics (Michiels, 2017). Honneth identifies three basic dimensions of recognition. The first is the sphere of family, friendship, and love, where recognition of the primary needs is at stake: protection, security, and love (preconditions for self-​confidence). The second is the sphere of law and the respect it confers. This is about the expectation of being recognized as a subject of law, capable of participating freely and equally in the public sphere. The third dimension relates to social utility in the socio-​professional sphere. Through the possibility of finding a recognized place within social exchanges, it develops self-​esteem by recognizing the value of each person’s particular contribution to society. For Honneth, all three dimensions of recognition are “indispensable to self-​fulfilment” (Honneth, 2000, p. 208). Once the existence of these different forms (or registers) of recognition is acknowledged, recognition theory provides a pertinent grid for interpretation of the normative principles at work in the educational space (Michiels, 2017). Indeed, as an institution of socialization, it is inevitably intersected by stabilized social interaction patterns,

New Philosophical Perspectives    277 representations of the law and its exercise, conceptions of social utility, and the conditions of social integration. Let us begin by considering the first register of recognition. The school institution cannot be assimilated to a sphere of intimate relations, yet it is increasingly both called upon to guarantee the dignity of its users and denounced when incidences of contempt, humiliation, or harassment take place. The question of developing self-​ confidence, or a sense of self-​efficacy, is discussed at length by social psychologists (Bandura, 1997; Pekrun et al., 2017; Usher & Pajares, 2008). Similarly, sociologists are interested in the experience of contempt and humiliation, which have become ordinary categories of school experience (Dubet, 2004; Merle, 2012). Regardless of its effects on a person’s place in social cooperation, failure at school can thus be interpreted as a relational experience of contempt (Michiels, 2017). In the same way, various forms of humiliation are denounced when the relationship between teachers and pupils leads to personal judgments of the student, exposing and publicly denigrating his or her intellectual, physical, or personal characteristics (Merle, 2012). The wealth of work on school bullying (Olweus, 1994; Volk et al. 2017), which can, incidentally, be analyzed in terms of moral disengagement (Bandura, 2002, 2016; Tolmatcheff, 2021), attests in turn to the centrality of relational and moral expectations in the school environment. Insofar as it seeks to respect and value each individual in his or her singularity, this moral “interpersonal recognition” requirement clearly permeates the inclusive school project. It is important to bear in mind that the semantics of inclusion arose out of a demand for recognition of the value of each child, and an opposition to deficient readings of difference. Similarly, inclusion is often associated with caring and well-​being (OECD, 2018). The second register (rights) refers to the moral imperative to be recognized as a subject capable of expressing and acting freely and equally in the public sphere. However, though (as an institution responsible for the education of legally incompetent minors) the school has long functioned as a space governed by its own rules and exempt from democratic norms, it is currently being colonized by the rights register. This is evidenced by the emergence of democratic and communicative justice in school relations—​as illustrated, for example, by the development of school mediation (Faget, 2010; Verhoeven, 1997). A second factor of this register is the rise of the theme of school democracy, observable through the co-​construction of regulations or school participation (student councils). International injunctions to provide democratic citizenship education are also part of this movement; they seek to turn school into somewhere democracy must be learned, lived, and experienced. The denial of these rights, or the concrete experience of their limitations, may lead pupils to feel ashamed (unworthy of being listened to), yet also gives rise to criticism formulated as a denial of recognition as a subject of law. The inclusive school framework explicitly affirms this objective of “preparing young people to exercise their active, responsible and engaged citizenship” (OECD, 2018, p. 5) and promotes the learning of specific competences in this regard. Lastly, the social utility register, understood as recognition of the value of each individual’s contribution to society, is also visible in the education sphere. This register

278    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez appears the moment there is an evaluation of education’s ability to lead to social and professional integration. This expectation of recognition can be identified via denunciation of the (symbolic or instrumental) devaluation of certain sectors. In this respect, certain inauspicious pupil pathway decisions can be read as moral wounds linked to the principle of social utility, since they signify to pupils concerned that their skills (or potential contribution to society) carry little social value. The inclusive education framework largely echoes this perspective, both by validating each individual’s participation in socioeconomic development, and in its concern for educational structures that confer value upon all pathways. The inclusive school framework is intersected by all three types of expectations of recognition. The central importance of anti-​discrimination can, moreover, be mapped onto these three registers systematically—​as interpersonal prejudice, infringements of the law, and obstacles to social and economic participation.

Capacitating Justice and Education The CA, initiated by Amartya Sen (1993) and Martha Nussbaum (2000), makes a major contribution to contemporary thinking on social justice. Making no claim to propose a substantive theory of the good life, it presents as a basis for criterion-​referenced evaluation of social arrangements, with real freedom as its ultimate criterion of justice. The key concept of capability refers to real freedom to achieve the “functionings” (concrete ways of being and acting) to which everyone is entitled to attribute value (Sen, 1993). The capability space represents “the alternative combination of things a person is able to do or be” (Sen, 1993, p. 30). In Sen’s view, the evaluation of individuals’ “functionings” is certainly important, since these embody the concrete becoming of freedom. However, in terms of justice, they come into their own only with regard to the capabilities space in which they are embedded. Sen aims to move beyond the Rawlsian approaches focused on equality of rights and resources. According to him, they focus “on means to freedom, rather than on the extent of the freedom that a person actually has” (Sen, 1992, p. 81). In so doing, Rawlsian approaches neglect human diversity—​because given identical resources, different individuals will not necessarily attain the same set of capabilities or the same achievements (Verhoeven et al., 2007). Sen departs from the desocialized individualism of liberalism to consider the social genesis of capabilities, as well as the social and institutional contexts in which freedom can unfold (De Munck, 2009; Gasper, 2002; Robeyns, 2006). He stresses the need to “recognise both the centrality of individual freedom and the strength of social influences on the scope and extension of that individual freedom” (Sen, 1999, p. xii). This is evidenced by his attention to the (social or environmental) conversion factors that can facilitate, or hinder, the conversion of resources into concrete achievements (Bonvin & Farvaque, 2007; Robeyns, 2006).

New Philosophical Perspectives    279 Although little explored by Sen himself, the application of this approach to issues of educational justice has been the subject of a growing body of work over the past 20 years (Farvaque, 2008; Hart, 2009; Robeyns, 2006; Saito, 2003; Terzi, 2004; Verhoeven et al., 2009; Walker, 2003, 2006; Wilson-​Strydom & Walker, 2016). In terms of how relevant this approach is to our purposes, five key points are worth highlighting. First, CA evaluates educational justice—​not just as a right, but above all in terms of its many contributions to the concrete future of learners’ freedom (Saito, 2003; Terzi, 2004). Education can, then, be understood as a conversion factor allowing the expansion of other skills (literacy, thinking skills, logical reasoning, understanding complex problems, etc.)—​all of which are important, both for the continuation of schooling itself and for the development of future skills. More fundamentally, education can potentially contribute to the development of an ability to “formulate exactly the valued beings and doings that the individual has reason to value” (Terzi, 2004, p. 10). Second, the CA provides a broad and normatively open basis for evaluation in terms of justice; it allows us to consider both the intrinsic value of education and its effects in terms of achievements, regardless of their nature (Robeyns, 2006). It can thus serve as a critical foundation for revealing the instrumental orientations of the human capital framework. Because of its insistence on participation in human development, it may resonate more readily with the inclusion framework—​yet also offers an important normative support against the functionalist drift of social cohesion (which would equate it with the maintenance of social order). Lastly, as a result of its emphasis on individual valuation of life courses and its refusal to reduce normative pluralism (De Munck, 2008), the CA is embedded in the plural grammar of globalization societies. Third, the CA invites questions regarding the specific temporality of education. Though Sen does recognize a certain level of agency in children, it is above all their education that raises the question of their real future freedoms (Saito, 2003). Educational processes should, then, be evaluated “according to their impact on people’s present and future capabilities” (Otto & Ziegler 2006, p. 7). Empowerment in and through education can therefore only be seen in terms of lifespan, and this recalls the temporal grammar of globalization. Taking such biographical temporality into account, we are invited to further complexify our analysis, since at each key stage of schooling, achievements take on the status of conversion factors, unlocking access to new achievements and impacting the set of capabilities perceived as accessible. At each stage, educational contexts must therefore be evaluated in terms of real freedom. Because educational pathways are linked to decision mechanisms and the phenomena of asymmetric pupil pathways within hierarchical education systems, their irreversibility is problematic, from the capability justice perspective (Verhoeven et al., 2009). In this sense, by focusing attention on the complex articulations between educational opportunities and real freedom, rather than on instrumental criteria, the CA can be relevant to criticism of how lifelong learning pathways are envisaged within the inclusive framework. A fourth benefit of using the CA is that it pays attention to the social and institutional conditions of capabilities deployment (Verhoeven et al., 2009). The achievements

280    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez of the sociology of education can then be called upon, better taking into account what we know about the social construction of the relationship to knowledge (Rochex, 2004) and study aspirations (Unterhalter & Walker, 2007; Walker, 2003). These elements can be considered social conversion factors—​likely to broaden or narrow the ability of pupils from different backgrounds to convert identical resources (access to schooling, certain pedagogical resources, etc.) into both effective learning and life projects that are attractive to them. The inclusion framework’s emphasis on differentiated and socially adapted pedagogies is, in this respect, an interesting response. Finally, the CA opens up a fifth important avenue for thinking about the contribution made by education to the deployment of real freedom. This reflection emerges from a paradox underlined by Vaughan and Walker (2012): While education does contribute to the social construction of values and aspirations, it is also likely to contribute to the expansion of real freedom. The problem (easily identifiable for sociology) is that of the social genesis of values, preferences, and aspirations (Bourdieu, 1979, 1994). Social position thus plays a decisive role in perception of the field of possibilities, with individuals adapting their aspirations to the social conditions of their existence, in line with adaptive preferences (Nussbaum, 2000). How can education contribute to the expansion of real freedom, even as it forges situated values and aspirations? For Vaughan and Walker (2012) the answer lies in an educational model that seeks to lead each individual to reflexively form their own conception of the good life, on the basis of a critical and dialogical examination of a wide range of perspectives. This implies the acquisition of a metacapability to develop critical and reflexive forms of consciousness, alongside two other capabilities: practical reasoning and a capacity for affiliation (which, in turn, demands capacities for empathy and decentering) (Nussbaum, 2006). Such a proposal seems to fit perfectly into the postconventional social grammar of globalized reflexive societies, where notions such as reflexivity and dialogical imagination are central.

Final Discussion In this chapter, we have examined the inclusive education framework from two distinct complementary perspectives: social theory and social philosophy. We began by showing how the semantics of inclusion is embedded in the social grammar of second modernity reflexive societies. This framework conveys the image of a learner in constant development, called upon to develop their reflexivity and agency in order to cope with normative pluralism and uncertainty. Inclusive education systems are also charged with responding to the unique needs of each individual, taking account of both their vulnerabilities and their potential. Lastly, the notion of social cohesion (closely associated with this framework) both expresses an unstable and emerging representation of the social order and assigns the task of contributing to it to education, via the hoped-​for encounter between individual fulfilment and global development.

New Philosophical Perspectives    281 This framework also raises important questions of social justice. How should contemporary expectations of recognition, and freedom to lead life according to your own values, be accommodated in the educational sphere? And how can they be linked to distributive equality concerns? In a bid to address these questions, this chapter has successively explored the tools developed by three social justice perspectives: the distributive, recognitive, and capability approaches. Both the recognitive and the capability approaches are very much in tune with second modern social grammar. By acknowledging human diversity and reflecting on the social conditions in which the recognition of identities and real freedom are deployed, these approaches reflect the individualizing grammar of reflexive societies. They share the postulates of the contemporary anthropology of vulnerability and capacity, insisting on both the need to protect individuals from the moral wounds that can arise from relationships with others, and the importance of the social and institutional conditions of freedom. Neither approach accepts any reduction of the pluralism of values that constitutes second modernity. The CA is particularly emblematic of this new grammar. It promotes an open-​ended temporal perspective and path reversibility over the linearity of social conditioning. Moreover, its most innovative proposals emphasize postconventional metacapabilities (reflexive, critical, and dialogical capacities), allowing individuals to construct their own agency and stand as moral subjects in a normatively plural world (Galliott & Graham 2014). Distributive concerns, while not absent from the debate, are undergoing certain shifts—​partly attributable to this new social grammar. The right to education thus incorporates differentialist connotations, articulating universality of access and respect for singularities. Meanwhile, the problem of inequality is less and less commonly framed in terms of the equalization of places or resources. New elements of the distributive register found in the inclusion framework include unequal opportunities to participate and the fight against discrimination of all kinds. Here, the pursuit of a more substantial ideal of equality is largely discarded, though we do see two promising ways of integrating an egalitarian concern to an inclusive frame of reference. On the one hand, the notion of equality of baseline skills, which aims to guarantee an equal supply of the basic skills essential for inclusion in the social exchange, deserves to be defended. It should be noted, however, that the inclusive education framework sees this baseline more as a safety net against exclusion, or a conversion factor opening the way to the future exercise of freedom, than as the foundation of social life. On the other hand, the issue of school choice and pathway guidance (often reduced to its neoliberal connotations) is also worthy of consideration in terms of distributive equality. If we are to reintroduce an egalitarian and emancipatory concern, then everyone must be equitably informed about the pathways open to them, so that possibilities other than those for which their initial socialization has prepared them become both perceptible and accessible. Moreover, to take account of the temporal grammar of second modernity, these steps should be repeated at each level of school options, and even throughout life—​not to ensure that the logic of competition comes into play from the earliest age, but rather to avoid the

282    Marie Verhoeven and Amandine Bernal Gonzalez irreversibility of educational and social destinies attributable to an inequitable distribution of resources. While the redistributive dimension of justice therefore remains significant, this chapter has focused on showing the relevance of the recognitive approach to examining the inclusive education framework, which articulates expectations of recognition in terms of relationships, rights, and social utility. Furthermore, this perspective provides useful conceptual tools for normative assessment of the various ideological versions of inclusion (e.g., those advocated by OECD and UNESCO). By insisting on the social conditions in which identities are developed, it provides critical points of support for the most liberal and desocialized versions of freedom of choice and exploration of “talents” being promoted. Third, the semantics of capability are central to the inclusive education framework discussed in this chapter; indeed, this last has stood its ground against the deficit view of difference. It aims to articulate an ideal of developing talents and potentialities, from a perspective of active participation in society, thus echoing both the individual and the collective facets of capabilities (De Munck, 2008). This framework also attaches central importance to the concrete destiny of real freedom. Beyond this shared language, the CA offers a useful critical apparatus with which to examine the dominant frames of reference. Thus, by insisting on both the social genesis of capabilities and the decisive role played by the institutional facilities in which freedom can be deployed, this approach makes it possible to criticize the desocialized conceptions of freedom found in certain international perspectives. While it shares with the human capital framework an interest in an extrinsic and consequentialist evaluation of education, its conceptual apparatus makes it possible to distinguish between educational devices oriented toward instrumental efficiency and those integrating the dimension of real freedom to their reflective processes. This is precisely where the distinction between learning organizations and enabling organizations comes in (Caillaud & Zimmerman, 2011), allowing movement toward a more emancipatory model of the reflexivity of educational organizations. Each of the three approaches to social justice explored here provides certain critical tools for thinking about educational justice. Each allows us to identify certain points in which extra care must be taken regarding the concrete deployment of the inclusion paradigm—​particularly in its most instrumental translations. We hope to have also shown that none can lay claim to self-​sufficiency. It is undoubtedly through practical combinations of all three, and readiness to reinvent when facing complex situations, that educational justice can be pursued in our reflexive, plural societies as they reach out to an uncertain future.

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chapter 13

Gl obaliz at i on, Un certaint y, a nd t h e Retu rns to E du c at i on Over the Life C ou rse i n Modern So c i et i e s Hans-​P eter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld

Introduction Since the early 1990s, globalization has increased the pace of social and economic change in modern societies. Globalization is an inherently complex concept (Guillén, 2001). It has become a central point of reference for media, politicians, academics, and policymakers to understand the accelerating social and economic changes in modern societies. The theoretical approach to globalization proposed in this chapter can be summarized under four interrelated structural shifts: (1) the swift internationalization of markets after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the breakdown of the East-​West Divide (economic globalization); (2) the rapid intensification of competition based on deregulation, privatization, and liberalization within welfare states (political globalization); (3) the accelerated diffusion of knowledge and the spread of global networks that are connecting all kinds of actors on the globe via modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) (informational globalization); and (4) the rising importance of markets and their dependence on random shocks occurring somewhere on the globe (network globalization). Together, these global forces have generated an unprecedented level of structural uncertainties in modern societies over recent decades. They are filtered by various domestic institutions such as educational systems, labor market

288    Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld structures, welfare regimes, as well as family traditions and channeled toward specific social groups. This chapter focuses on the role of education institutions in the process of globalization and describes how educational outcomes affect individual life courses in 17 different countries. Based on selected theoretical and empirical results of the international comparative Globalife project (Blossfeld, Buchholz, et al., 2006; Blossfeld & Hofmeister, 2008; Blossfeld et al., 2005; Blossfeld, Mills, et al., 2006), this chapter describes the interaction of global forces and country-​specific educational institutions and shows how these changes produce path dependencies in educational systems and affect the outcomes of education over the life course in different countries. On the Globalife project, about 70 researchers from different educational systems (stratified vs. unstratified, occupation-​specific vs. general vocational training), labor market structures (open vs. closed labor markets), welfare regimes (liberal, conservative, social-​democratic, familistic, and postsocialistic), and family traditions (strong vs. weak family support) collaborated. The following 17 countries were studied in the Globalife project: Canada, the United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, and Hungary. The empirical analyses of the Globalife project covered the historical period from the 1980s to the mid-​2000s. The cross-​national comparison of countries that are structurally different allows to gain an empirically grounded theoretical understanding of how globalization, and the apparent uncertainty that it generates at the individual level, leads to changes in the role of education at entry into the labor market as well as men’s and women’s midlife experiences.

The Process of Globalization Since the Early 1990s Four Structural Shifts of Globalization Since the early 1990s, four interrelated globalization shifts can be observed in modern societies. The first structural shift of globalization refers to the internationalization of markets and subsequent decline of national borders (see Figure 13.1). It is connected with political changes in laws, institutions, or practices which make various transactions (in terms of commodities, labor, services, and capital) easier or less expensive across national borders. The decline of national borders often relates to the modification of trade regulations, political discourse, and treaties. In the period of globalization, one can witness intensified interactions among nation states or social groups from various countries supported by international institutions. Some have argued that the decline of national borders undermines the authority or even heralds the fall of the nation state (Beck, 2000). The empirical results from the Globalife project show, however, that the

GLOBALIZATION Internationalization of markets

Intensification of competition based on deregulation, privatization, liberalization

Endogenous intensification of innovation, increasing rate of economic and social change

Spread of global networks and knowledge via new ICTs

Rising importance of markets and their dependence on random shocks

Accelerating market transactions

Increasing volatility of markets

Increasing uncertainty INSTITUTIONAL FILTERS Employment systems

Education systems

Welfare regimes

Family systems

Level of employment, job stability, job mobility, security, flexibility, workrelated benefits

Degree of stratification of education, degree standardization, timing and ease of labor market entry, occupational specificity of vocational training , retraining, role of lifelong learning

Safety net, employmentsustaining policies, child care options, dependence on primary earner, insurance systems, retirement policies

Level of caregiving responsibility, presence of other earners, cohabitation, marriage, family roles

Channel uncertainty to specific social groups to impact: MICRO-LEVEL Youth: Education and transition to first job, first partnership, first child Men: Education, training, job career, transitions to unemployment and back Women: Education, training, job mobility, transitions to unemployment or unpaid caregiving and re-entry to employment Figure 13.1 How globalization creates increasing uncertainty and impacts life course transitions.

290    Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld nation state and in particular their institutions that shape life courses across all age groups do not really lose their significance but generate country-​specific problems that call for different solutions and transformations. Internationalization of markets also means the integration of previously “isolated” nations into the world economy. For example, several countries in the Globalife study experienced closure to outside global forces such as the former communist East Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, or Hungary. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, these countries have been quickly integrated into the worldwide competition. The second structural shift of globalization relates to the intensification of exchange and competition between nation states (see Figure 13.1), that is, the notion that capital and labor are increasingly mobile and forcing national economies to continuously adjust. For nation states this means an increased importance of governments to make their national economies internationally competitive. These policy measures include the improvement of the functioning of markets through the removal or relaxation of government regulation of economic activities (deregulation). It also suggests a shift toward relying more on the price mechanism to coordinate economic activities (liberalization), and a transfer to private ownership and control of assets or enterprises that were previously under public ownership (privatization). This neoliberal shift often means a push to adjust prices, products, technologies, and human resources more rapidly and extensively (Montanari, 2001; Regini, 2000a, 2000b). A third feature of globalization is the spread of global networks of people and firms linked by ICTs such as computers, smartphones, and the Internet (see Figure 13.1) (Castells, 2000). These ICTs, together with modern social media, transmit messages and images instantaneously and permit a faster diffusion of information and knowledge over long distances and across countries. They increasingly allow for the creation of an instant common worldwide standard of comparison. Thus, recent ICTs have fundamentally altered the scope (widening reach of networks of social activity and power), intensity (regularized connections), velocity (speeding up of interactions and social processes), and impact (local impacts global) of societal transformations (Held et al., 1999). The fourth structural shift of globalization is inherently related to the increasing interconnectedness of people and markets on the globe (see Figure 13.1). It increases the relevance of distant events for local decision makers in all modern societies. These developments inherently strengthen the worldwide interdependence of decision-​making.

The Globalization Trend Empirically Examined The development of worldwide globalization between 1970 and 2018 can be described by the KOF Globalization Index (Gygli et al., 2019). This measure is based on the same conceptual frame of globalization that has been used in the Globalife project and utilizes 42 yearly indicators (covering the economic, social, political, and ICT dimensions of

Uncertainty and the Returns to Education    291 65 60 55 50 45 40 35

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

Figure 13.2  Description of the globalization process based on the KOF Globalization Index 1970–​2018. (Source: Gygli et al., 2019)

globalization) from 185 nations. Missing values of indicators within some country-​ specific time series are imputed using linear interpolation. Although globalization is not a new phenomenon, the KOF Index clearly shows that the slope of change of the globalization process increased steeply after the early 1990s and leveled off at a much higher degree of globalization at around 2010 (see Figure 13.2). Thus, there was a huge acceleration of globalization after the end of the Cold War.

Globalization and Increasing Uncertainty Globalization does not only mean that actors are increasingly in the hands of anonymous global markets. What is equally important is that the changes on these markets are becoming more dynamic and less predictable. Thus, globalization is a catalyst of uncertainty in modern societies: First, the globalization of markets endogenously intensifies competition between firms, forcing them to be more flexible and innovative, to use the latest technologies, or to invent new products. This, in turn, increases the volatility of markets (Streeck, 1987). Second, modern ICTs, deregulation, privatization, and liberalization measures allow individuals, firms, and governments to react faster to observed market changes and simultaneously accelerate market transactions (Castells, 2000). This, in turn, makes long-​term developments of globalizing societies inherently harder to predict. Third, global prices tend to become exogenously more liable to fluctuations because worldwide supply, demand, or both are getting increasingly dependent on random shocks caused somewhere on the globe (e.g., based on major scientific discoveries, technical inventions, new consumer fashions, and major political upsets such as wars and revolutions). The accelerated market dynamics and the rising dependence of prices on random events happening somewhere on the globe produce a higher frequency of surprises and lead to market prices which are different

292    Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld to an important extent from what people reasonably could have expected given the restricted information available to them. In other words, the increasing dynamics and volatility of outcomes of globalizing markets make it more difficult for individuals, firms, and governments to predict the future of the market and to make choices between different alternatives and strategies. Increasing uncertainty about economic and social developments is therefore a definitive feature of globalization in advanced economies. At the individual level, rising uncertainty for actors has several consequences: (1) rational decision-​making is increasingly difficult because future outcomes of choices are harder to predict, (2) additional decision mechanisms (e.g., traditions, local social norms, local framing, habits, rules of thumb) are gaining in importance to compensate declining rational decision making, (3) there is a shift toward short-​term time horizons and decision-​making, (4) long-​term self-​binding individual decisions (in the spheres of education, training, careers, family, and children) are becoming more problematic, and (5) contexts of social reciprocity and trust (in partnerships, family, welfare state, etc.) are undermined by increasing uncertainty. In the Globalife project, uncertainty was operationalized by the precariousness of employment (type of job, occupational standing), by the quality of employment contracts (e.g., fixed term contracts, part-​time work), and by the returns to education in terms of benefits as well as earnings over the life course.

Globalization and Institutional Filters It is not essentially increasing uncertainty per se that is important if the consequences of globalization are studied. Rather, it is how rising uncertainty is “institutionally filtered” and channeled toward specific social groups in various countries (see Figure 13.1). Therefore, increasing uncertainty does not impact all regions, states, organizations, or individuals in the same way. There are institutional settings and social structures (historically grown and country-​specific) that determine the degree to which people are affected by rising global uncertainty (DiPrete et al., 1997). These institutions have a strong inertial tendency to persist and act as a sort of intervening variable between global macro forces and the responses at the micro level (see Figure 13.1) (Esping-​ Andersen, 1993; Nelson, 1995). Thus, rising uncertainty does not lead to a simple convergence of life course institutions in all modern societies, as claimed, for example, by neoinstitutionalists (Meyer et al., 1992) or the proponents of the modernization hypothesis (Treiman, 1970). Rather, the results of the Globalife project suggest that there are path-​dependent developments within each of the countries (Mayer, 2001; Nelson, 1995). The institutions that most impact life courses are educational systems, employment relations, national welfare state regimes, and the family traditions (see Figure 13.1). These institutional filters are described in detail in Blossfeld, Klijzing, Mills, and Kurz (2005). The following section focuses on hypotheses on the roles of education and educational institutions in globalized societies.

Uncertainty and the Returns to Education    293

Hypotheses on the Interaction Between Globalization and Country-​ Specific Educational Institutions and Its Impact on the Returns to Education In a globalized, knowledge-​based society, education and labor force experience become the most important types of human capital. Educational attainment and occupational standing measure human capital, which may increase with education, labor force experience, and age. There are great differences in educational institutions among nations in the way they (1) differentiate the maximum number of school years attended by all and tracking (stratification) (Blossfeld et al., 2016), (2) value certificates or ability-​based learning, (3) standardize the quality of education and training (standardization), (4) link education with entry into the labor market and job careers, (5) offer nonformal and formal retaining, and (6) support lifelong learning (adult education). In the following, we discuss three hypotheses of how differences in educational institutions (that are also closely linked to structures in the labor market, welfare regimes, and retirement schemes) influence the returns to qualification over the life course in times of accelerated globalization. First, one can think of differences in educational systems in terms of “qualificational” versus “organizational” space (Maurice & Sellier, 1979). “Qualificational” space means that education is closely tied to job requirements in the vocational system with a strong focus on diploma requirements and certificates, whereas “organizational” space means that education is academic or general in character with specific occupational skills learned on the job. Following Allmendinger (1989), educational systems can also be distinguished by their degree of educational “stratification” or “standardization” (see also Blossfeld, 1992; Shavit & Müller, 1998). In unstratified systems, all children have the opportunity to attend school, which may lead to postsecondary education until the age of 18, with the same range of options (theoretically) open to all students. In these countries (e.g., the United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, or Sweden), a larger proportion of a cohort attains a higher number of school years provided by the general educational system. Whereas in the “stratified” educational systems (e.g., in the German-​speaking countries, the Netherlands, Denmark, or Hungary), educational opportunities of youth are stratified as they are streamed into specific educational tracks at a younger age. Second, the manner that countries combine theoretical learning with practical work experience in vocational training has direct implications for labor market entry and job mobility (Blossfeld, 1992). Examples of countries with systems of “organizational” space are the United States of America or France. Countries that focus on “qualificational” space value nationwide standardized certificates that are easily understood by employers

294    Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld (e.g., Germany or Denmark). Another important differentiation of educational systems is whether countries organize vocational training mainly through (1) “theoretical” training in vocational schools (e.g., France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, Estonia, or Mexico), (2) “practical” on-​the-​job training (e.g., the United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Spain, Sweden, or Norway), or (3) the so-​called dual vocational training system, a pragmatic combination of theoretical learning at school and job experience at the workplace (e.g., Germany or Denmark). Based on these institutional differences of the educational systems, the Globalife project proposed an educational system hypothesis, specifying the impact of the type of educational system on labor market entry and subsequent job careers in the periods shortly before (1980–​1990) and during rapid globalization (1990 to mid-​2000s): First, theoretical training in vocational schools promotes a broader understanding of occupational activities, but it does not confront youths with real work situations. Since practical experience is shifted to the period after theoretical vocational training, the hypothesis of the Globalife project was that youth engaged in training from these systems will have a relatively more difficult transition from school to work (higher unemployment rates and longer job search durations) in the period of accelerated globalization. Second, in the organizational system of practical on-​the-​job training (often unstratified and unstandardized), workers will be less restricted to narrowly defined occupational fields, have fewer structural barriers in terms of recognized certificates, and have a weaker link between the type of qualification they possess and the type of job they obtain. However, due to the heterogeneous quality of on-​the-​job training, the Globalife project assumed that this lack of shared definitions and standards with respect to skills, income, and job requirements will increase the risk of workers to move between firms in times of rising economic restructuring. Although the transition from school to work will be relatively easy in these systems, intense mobility and a protracted duration for workers to find a suitable and permanent job match is very likely in the period of accelerated globalization. Finally, in the dual system (often qualificational, highly standardized, and stratified), we expect workers to have less turbulent (early) labor market experiences (low youth unemployment rates and short job search durations). This is due to the fact that the dual system provides a smooth transition from the general educational school system to the employment system because the vocational training system feeds directly into jobs in the labor market (Blossfeld, 1992). The disadvantage of such a training system in a global era of rapidly shifting occupational structures is, however, that it leads to a too close coupling of vocational certificates and educational opportunities, and thus to a high degree of rigidity, a low level of job mobility, and often long-​term unemployment. Third, a related point is the degree of educational expansion in each country (Blossfeld et al., 2016). When the Globalife project examined the cohort-​specific attendance rates across various levels of education for the countries under study, there has been a prolonged extension of school participation across birth cohorts in all countries. However, the Globalife project expected that, in some countries, this prolonged educational participation is also related to high unemployment rates in times of globalization.

Uncertainty and the Returns to Education    295 For example, in Italy and Spain, there is a tendency among young adults to opt for the role of a student instead of leaving the educational system and becoming unemployed. In other words, the educational system then serves as a reservoir for otherwise unemployed youths with a tendency of overqualification (in particular in Spain) in times of accelerated globalization. For young people entering the labor market, the Globalife project assumed that the global increase of uncertainty is experienced more directly. They are unprotected by seniority and experience, and they do not yet have strong ties to work organizations and work environments. Thus, one can expect that youth leaving the educational system and entering the labor market are more exposed to global uncertainty in all countries than qualified workers who are established in their job career or have gained several years of labor force experience (life course hypothesis). In addition, the Globalife project expected that those lacking human capital (such as people with low education, weak occupational standing, or lacking work experience) will feel the impact of globalized labor markets more immensely in all modern societies. These individuals should be at a higher risk to enter into the increasingly created precarious, flexible, and uncertain employment situations (e.g., fixed-​term contracts, part-​ time work, irregular working hours) in the course of globalization in many countries. Conversely, those with higher education or the “knowledge workers” should be more protected against the impact of globalization and should have more favorable career experiences because they are more competitive. However, labor market theory suggests that better educated workers are not entirely immune to the consequences of globalization in different labor market structures. In countries with open employment relationships (such as the United States of America, Canada, Ireland, or United Kingdom), the labor market is characterized as decentralized, dualistic, and based on free market forces and competition. It is a system where employment relations are open in the sense that protective factors such as labor unions, legislation related to job security, and stability are weak. In these labor markets, shielding of even qualified workers is therefore smaller, market mechanisms are central, and individuals’ human capital is crucial for finding a new job (DiPrete et al., 1997; Esping-​Andersen, 1999; Sørensen, 1983). Countries with labor markets with relatively closed employment relationships (such as Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, or Italy) (Sørensen, 1983) have centralized procedures for negotiating wages and, in extreme cases, can even be characterized as “insider-​outsider” labor markets (e.g., Italy and Spain; Regini, 2000a). In these “insider-​ outsider” labor markets qualified workers, who have jobs (the “insiders”), are typically highly protected and the global uncertainty is largely channeled toward individuals who are searching for a first job, are unemployed, or have interrupted their career due to family reasons (the “outsiders”). Based on these labor market differences, the Globalife project proposed a qualification-​ employment-​ relationship hypothesis regarding the labor market experiences of qualified workers in various countries (Soskice, 1993, 1999). The main consequences of globalization in open employment relationship systems for qualified

296    Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld workers are predicted as follows: (1) a lower economic security (e.g., wages, benefits) for most jobs compared to closed employment relationships; (2) an environment that fosters flexible employment to the extent that it becomes more widespread among various, even qualified, social groups; (3) an increased importance of individual human capital resources for job success; (4) relatively easy (re-​)entry into the labor market after unemployment or family-​related job interruptions; (5) unemployment of a shorter duration; and (6) a relatively high rate of job mobility (which follows from the more flexible hire-​and-​fire principle). In contrast, the consequences of globalization on qualified workers in closed employment relationship systems are expected to be that (1) they are less affected by precarious employment forms (e.g., fixed-​term contracts, part-​time work), because these employment relationships are highly concentrated among unqualified workers; (2) first entry into the labor force is problematic, particularly under conditions of high general unemployment (Blossfeld, 1992); (3) unemployment is usually of a longer duration than in systems with open employment relationships; and (4) the rate of job mobility is relatively low. Within these closed labor markets most of the already employed qualified workers, the so-​called insiders, will therefore be relatively shielded against the growing uncertainty and flexibility demands of the world market. Globalization in these countries tends to create a new kind of underclass of the low qualified workers, while the qualified employed have high levels of job security with relatively high wages. To test these hypotheses, the Globalife project examined the entry into the labor market and the subsequent job mobility by educational level and labor force experience. There is still a debate over the “upgrading” or “deskilling” effects of accelerated change of modern technology induced by globalization and the change of the importance of competencies and qualification certificates in modern job careers. First, Standing (1997) claims that in the era of accelerated technological change, craft skills learned via apprenticeships and prolonged on-​the-​job training have declined. Second, there is the “skill polarization” hypothesis that claims that globalization produces only a small elite of technically skilled, high-​status specialist workers possessing higher-​ level institutional qualifications, coupled with a larger mass of technically semi-​skilled production and subsidiary workers requiring only minor training. This accelerated polarization in times of globalization places greater reliance on external than on internal labor markets, since workers are increasingly in jobs involving little or no prospect of upward mobility or firm-​specific returns to on-​the-​job continuity. This, of course, means less benefits from on-​the-​job training and experience in times of globalization (Standing, 1997). Finally, educational systems also influence the labor market opportunities of men and women by steering them into gender-​specific vocational training and different fields of higher education. In vocational training, men are more often assigned into the fields of manufacturing, trade, and administration, while women focus on jobs in social, health, administration, and care. In higher education, men are steered into so-​called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) occupations, while women are predominantly channeled into so-​called non-​STEM occupations (e.g., humanities, arts,

Uncertainty and the Returns to Education    297 literature, social sciences, and teaching occupations). This not only leads to high levels of occupational segregation but also affects their careers (Blossfeld et al., 2015) and earnings trajectories (Hannan et al., 1990). Labor market participation and career success of midlife women also depend strongly on whether educational systems allow women to obtain further training or retraining after family interruptions so that they can compete in the labor market with often continuously employed men. The Globalife project therefore compared the careers of men in midcareer and women in midlife in different countries (Blossfeld et al. 2008; Blossfeld, Mills, et al. 2006).

Empirical Results on the Interdependence of Globalization, Uncertainty, and the Role of Education Over the Life Course in Modern Societies The aim of the Globalife project was to empirically examine the consequences of rising global, social, and economic uncertainties on the role of education. By exploring cross-​ national patterns of education institutions and the returns to education in terms of precariousness of employment, the quality of employment contracts (e.g., fixed term contracts, part-​time work, lower occupational standing), and earnings as well as job benefits over the life course. The research design included 17 highly standardized country case studies (from Canada, the United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, and Hungary) that were based on the best available (longitudinal) individual-​level data in these countries. The country case studies were carried out by national experts who were familiar with the data sets available within each country and were able to analyze them to the fullest advantage. The empirical analyses were guided by the same theoretical ideas and the same statistical models so that the results are highly comparable. The Globalife project studied life course transitions (leaving the educational system and entry into the labor market as well as career and midlife transitions) comparing successive birth cohorts in the historical period between 1980 and mid-​2000s. In the following, we present selective empirical results from the Globalife project.

Youth All countries of the Globalife project showed an increase in the amount of social and economic uncertainty in the course of accelerated globalization, confirming the

298    Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld Globalife project’s expectation that individuals in globalized societies experience more uncertainty in the employment sphere. However, it also demonstrated that the young generation entering the labor market was confronted with a particularly high level of uncertainty. This materialized in increasingly more precarious and lower-​quality employment such as fixed-​term contracts, part-​time or irregular working hours, or lower occupational standing at entry into the labor market. This, in turn, bestowed the youngest labor market entrants with a more uncertain future. Youth, who have less labor market experience and who are not yet shielded by internal labor markets, are more greatly exposed to the forces of globalization, which makes them the “losers” of globalization. The Globalife project also provided empirical evidence that the country-​specific institutions are not converging worldwide in the course of globalization. Rather, the national institutions have a strong inertial tendency and interact with global forces. Because the globalization process leads to different problems within various institutional settings, nation states and individual actors react in varying ways toward global changes. This leads to path dependencies in educational and labor market institutions in different modern societies. Nation-​specific educational institutions in combination with different types of labor market structures were quite persistent and clearly funneled uncertainty in unique ways and to particular qualification groups. For example, the youngest cohorts in Italy and Spain needed increasingly more time to find their first job and were less likely to convert the growing number of temporary contracts into permanent ones. Thus, in these two countries, younger cohorts were confronted with rising youth unemployment and, as a consequence, decided to participate longer in education. In other words, young adults from Spain and Italy opted increasingly for the role of student rather than leaving the educational system and becoming unemployed. To some extent, the educational system has become a “parking lot” for otherwise unemployed youth. In Spain, where the share of college graduates has risen particularly sharply, this expansion of educational participation has also been associated with a trend toward overqualification. In Italy and Spain, highly educated youth must find an appropriate job matching their educational qualification when entering the labor market. Because of the importance of a good job match in these closed employment systems, higher-​ educated youth are very selective and therefore have a longer search time. If they got a job below their skill level, it was much more difficult for them to resume a normal career. So, in these two countries, it is the highly skilled young people who are most affected by globalization. In Germany, in contrast, there was a clear and significant stratification of the type of youth that experienced unemployment due to the tripartite school and dual vocational training system. The dual system, which combines theoretical learning with practical experience at the workplace, clearly served as a kind of bridge between the general educational system and the labor market, so that the unemployment rate was particularly low among young people with vocational training. The unemployment rate was also very low for German graduates of higher education because in the German qualificational space job opportunities are strongly tied to diploma

Uncertainty and the Returns to Education    299 requirements and certificates. In Germany, therefore, it is usually the unskilled who experienced particularly high youth unemployment, and it is very hard for them to move out of secondary labor market positions. This German pattern of transition from the educational system to the labor market stands in stark contrast to the “stop-​ gap” pattern generated by the system of in-​company, on-​the-​job training combined with the open employment labor market in the United States of America. There, for many young (highly) qualified entrants, lower entry-​level jobs have comparatively less harmful consequences on their later careers. This means that even if the first job is a precarious one, they can easily move on to a normal career sooner or later because the job careers are based on the logic of on-​the-​job training in the organizational space. In summary, the Globalife project demonstrated that globalization accentuated the inequality in terms of returns to education for youth. Not only has uncertainty intensified but also a clear segmentation process comes about among youth with different qualifications. Certain groups of youth are disproportionately impacted, with the risks of globalization mainly accumulated at the bottom. In support of the employment-​ relationship hypothesis, the “insider-​outsider” split was even more evident in societies with a closed employment system where uncertainty was clearly channeled to the unskilled and even to qualified labor market outsiders much more intensively. The results of the Globalife project regarding open employment systems (such as in the United States of America, United Kingdom, or Canada) were also confirmed. Here the relative shielding of qualified workers was much less prevalent, with globalization risks spread over a wider base, leaving youth to rely much more on their own human capital. Yet in support of the human capital hypothesis, even though uncertainty was more pervasive, inequality still accumulated disproportionately in groups with low human capital. Particularly in the closed employment systems (such as in Germany, Italy, or Spain), uncertainty took the form of employment relation or temporal uncertainty (the reduced attractiveness of long-​term contracts). In these countries, qualified insiders were especially protected. The only way to introduce flexibility into this system was by shifting it to outsiders who have not yet secured employment protection. The youngest and least qualified workers were increasingly in precarious, fixed-​term contracts in Germany, Spain, and Italy. The use of fixed-​term contracts has skyrocketed in many countries. In the Netherlands, for instance, there has been a clear drop in the number of youths who hold a permanent contract and a rise in those with temporary, part-​time, or training contracts.

Midcareer Men The Globalife project also showed that there are indeed some groups such as midcareer men, who generally surface as “winners” in the globalization process. With regard to the midcareer experiences, a central finding was that, in general, there has been employment stability for qualified men in social-​democratic (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden),

300    Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Gwendolin J. Blossfeld familistic (Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Ireland), and, to a lesser extent, the conservative welfare regimes (Germany, the Netherlands, and France) in times of accelerated globalization. Employment patterns remained relatively constant particularly for qualified men in countries such as Denmark and Sweden, where they are largely shielded from globalization by the welfare regime. Midcareer men in the familistic regimes of Italy and Spain were the clear “insiders.” As insiders, qualified midcareer men are to a large extent shielded by labor force experience, internal labor markets, and existing power structures in the “insider-​outsider” countries. The forces of globalization are therefore shifted strongly to the labor market outsiders such as youth, the unemployed, or women who interrupted careers for family reasons. However, there were also some few examples of increased employment instability for men. For example, Mexico’s orientation on economic integration, exports, and privatization reduced qualified men’s possibilities of upward mobility and increased their representation in the informal sector. Men in the highly flexible, deregulated labor markets in the United Kingdom and the United States of America were more likely to experience increased employment instability. Finally, the collapse of socialism opened the gates for globalization in postsocialistic countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, and Hungary), accompanied by rapid and deep political and economic changes. This resulted in a significant increase in employment instability even for established qualified men. In general, educational investments heightened the odds of occupational success and lowered the risk of employment failure of midcareer (mostly male) employees.

Women’s Careers Country-​specific institutions are also strongly impacting qualified women’s careers and mediate specific aspects of their employment trajectory such as the employment stability, duration of caregiving, and reentry after unemployment or caregiving. The Globalife project found that globalization appears to be passing uncertainty to qualified women, who have interrupted their careers due to family reasons (e.g., rearing children or caring for the elderly) in countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, or Ireland. Based on their family roles, they have become “outsiders” in the globalized labor market. The pathways qualified women took to respond to this rising uncertainty were diverse. Some of them responded by decreasing their labor market attachment voluntarily by turning to caregiving options, while others more firmly committed to any sort of paid work to support their families financially. The exceptions were where qualified women are getting a strong state support in terms of further education (such as in the Netherlands, Sweden, or Denmark). In general, education heightened the odds of occupational success and lowered the risk of employment failure for qualified midlife women, but there were notable exceptions, including Germany and the postsocialistic countries, where high education failed to protect women from labor market vulnerability (in terms of unemployment or downward mobility) after family-​connected employment interruptions.

Uncertainty and the Returns to Education    301

Summary The approach of the Globalife project deviated in several crucial ways from existing research in the field of globalization. First, it took an empirical approach. Among the vast amount of globalization literature in the social sciences, there have been only few attempts at constructing testable hypotheses or systematic empirical examinations of how the overarching global changes impact the life courses of individuals. A second related difference has been that the Globalife project focused on the individual in globalization research and used longitudinal data covering longer historical periods (from 1980 to mid-​2000s). Third, rather than heralding the fall of the nation state, the empirical analyses of the Globalife project demonstrated that the institutions of nation states do not largely lose their significance but are facing a more general path-​dependent transformation. Finally, the Globalife project empirically studied whether globalization results in changing returns to education and leads to new social and economic inequalities within industrialized nations. The main results of the Globalife project with regard to returns to education can be summarized as follows. The most vulnerable group with regard to rising social and economic uncertainties are the low-​qualified and unskilled workers in all countries. In other words, qualification and skills protect against the risks and uncertainties of globalization. However, there are remarkable differences of how qualified workers are affected by globalization over the life course. In most countries, the uncertainties are channeled toward the young generation, leaving the educational system and entering the labor market. Depending on the nation-​specific institutional framework, young qualified people are confronted with higher unemployment rates, lower wages, precariousness of employment, or lower quality of employment contracts (e.g., fixed term contracts, part-​ time work). In particular in “insider-​outsider” labor markets, it takes much longer until young adults establish themselves in the labor market and peruse a stable job career. While youth can therefore be called the “losers” of globalization, established qualified midcareer men are clearly the “winners” of globalization. They are able to enjoy both lower prices of goods which lead to higher standards of living in times of globalization and a high employment protection through the institutions of internal labor markets. Particularly, in conservative and familistic welfare regimes, where mainly women are interrupting their employment careers (e.g., for family-​related care work) and thus become “outsiders,” qualified midlife women are exposed to rising global uncertainties and have difficulties reentering the labor market in positions that fit their educational qualifications.

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chapter 14

Gl obaliz at i on of Edu cation a nd t h e So ciol o gy of E l i t e s Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten

Introduction Between the 1960s and the late 1990s, research on elite education focused on elite institutions’ acculturation of children and youths to the values characterizing national elites, as well as preparing them for social and professional positions in national social structures (Bourdieu, 1989; Levine, 1980; Wakeford, 1969; Walford, 1986). This was also the case for the scarce comparative research on this topic conducted during the same period (Cookson & Persell, 1985). Over the last 20 years, new studies have emerged exploring the influence of international financial flux, of the global circulation of ideas and cultural forms, and of transnational individual mobility on elite education, establishing a fruitful dialogue with theoretical writings and empirical studies on globalization and its effects. These new strands of research have been fueled by studies on the emergence of a “transnational” upper class of top managers having in common an intense professional international mobility and associated lifestyles (Carroll, 2010; Sklair, 2001), and by numerous studies documenting and commenting the rise of global “super-​ rich” and the unparalleled level of economic concentration and interconnectedness among the elites (Cousin & Chauvin, 2021). Another influence on the literature on elite education can be found in research on intraclass distinctions, exploring the national and international orientations of old and new bourgeoisies and economic, political, and cultural elites (Wagner, 2020). These strands of research have complicated the definition of “global educational elites” and even more so as some of the studies also take into account the transnational and cosmopolitan aspirations of a heterogeneous “global middle class” (Ball & Nikita, 2014; Koo, 2016).

Education and the Sociology of Elites    305 These analyses are also modifying traditional definitions of elite schools. While established elite schools are still very much places for the reproduction of traditional elites and upper classes, they now face stronger pressures from new-​moneyed groups investing economic capital in them in the hope of converting it into cultural and social capital valuable in both their home country and international social circles (Beech et al., 2021; Windle & Maire, 2019). The “usurpatory” strategies developed by newcomers (Elias & Scotson, 1965; Parkin, 1974) have created dilemmas for elite schools enrolling large numbers of international students, especially between promoting soft versions of multiculturalist ideals to appear inclusive of these students or inculcating the cultural norms of their established clientele (Kenway & Lazarus, 2017). These dilemmas are also the result of the expansionist strategies of some elite schools whose efforts to conquer new markets are likely to endanger a symbolic status based on the cultivation of exclusiveness (Bunnell et al., 2020). The dominant position of these schools and the definition of elite education are also being challenged by the growing popularity of international tracks and schools and the large diffusion of models of global education such as the international baccalaureate (IB) and global citizenship education (GCE). The chapter is organized into two sections. Taking account of a variety of countries and geographical areas, the first section focuses on elite families and their cosmopolitan educational perspectives and practices. More broadly, it addresses the effects of transnational perspectives in education on social stratification, by examining the expanding cosmopolitan reach of the educational choices of upper-​class and aspiring middle-​class parents. The second section turns to educational offer to look into the globalizing practices of elite schools around the world, with a specific focus on secondary schooling.1 It examines the meanings and forms that international curricula, tracks, and schools can take in various national and local contexts and in relation to different class fractions as well as the impact of these processes on the redefinition of what constitutes an elite education.

What’s in a Cosmopolitan Education? The transnational circulation of children has historically been a central feature in elite training. In European aristocratic families, practices such as the “Grand” and “Petit Tour,” visits to relatives in foreign countries, and family leisure trips or diplomatic sojourns abroad have been considered the foundations of a specific cosmopolitan ethos acquired from an early age. However, the academic debate on the emergence of a transnational class, distinct from national class structures and comprising global policy actors, as well as financial, professional, and media elites, only fully emerged in the late 1990s. The rise of this new group was sustained by the globalization of the economy and the emergence of global policy arenas and structured by class interests and lifestyles promoting geographical mobility, including attendance at the same international schools (Sklair, 2001; van der Pijl, 1998). Yet most empirical work using this framework

306    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten has focused less on the global elite per se than on national contexts, studying either their practices in specific settings—​mostly through the lens of expatriate communities (Beaverstock, 2002, 2005; Le Renard, 2019; Wagner, 1998)—​or different national elites’ pathways of internationalization or lack thereof (Bühlmann et al., 2013; Denord et al., 2018; Hartmann, 2011). Bourdieu’s theoretical writings have been instrumental in theorizing the role of education in the making of a transnational class, especially regarding the definition and the modus operandi of cosmopolitan and/​or transnational capital, as a component of cultural capital or a capital in itself (Bühlmann & al., 2013; Igarashi & Saito, 2014; Weenink, 2008). Although “cosmopolitan(ism)” and “transnational(ism)” are two terms frequently used interchangeably (Bühlmann, 2020) when related to analyses in terms of cultural capital, they tend to refer to different dimensions. The term “cosmopolitanism” has widely been associated with worldviews, lifestyles, and identifications, and sometimes criticized for its historical and Eurocentric implicit ideology, as its genealogy traces back to a more idealist perspective related to openness to other places, cultures, and people (Oxley & Morris, 2013). Transnationalism, on the other hand, most often designates social practices of migration and mobility that allow individuals to build economic, social, cultural, and political strategies in order to benefit from resources from different nation state regimes. We have decided to distinguish both terms analytically here, with a first subsection focusing on the uneasy relation between cosmopolitan aspirations as revealed in educational choices and their qualification as “elite” strategies, and a second subsection focusing on the growing attention given by various social groups to international mobility as a way of enhancing their children’s educational trajectories and career paths.

Socially Stratified Cosmopolitan Educational Practices A New Neoliberal Type of Elite Cosmopolitanism? The notion of cosmopolitanism has been historically associated in the literature with the ethos and habitus that the aristocracy and bourgeoisie traditionally transmit to their children. This cultural heritage is organized around a model of family and social life simultaneously aiming at the intergenerational production of future leaders and elite members and at the reproduction, over time, of traditional values and structures (Holmqvist, 2017; Mension-​Rigau, 1997; Pinçon & Pinçon-​Charlot, 2000). The norms, representations, and practices that define this model are both strongly embedded in national contexts and dependent on modes of transmission among elite groups that extend beyond national boundaries, relying on an inherited familiarity with similar social groups and cultural models in other countries, and on transnational connections and mobility patterns, professional and leisure-​wise (Poupeau, 2004; Wagner, 2007). For obvious reasons, families play a central role in instilling this cosmopolitan habitus in their children. However, to varying degrees across countries, parents have also partly delegated its transmission to, until recently predominantly single-​sex, private boarding

Education and the Sociology of Elites    307 schools (Bertron, 2019; O’Neill, 2014). Historically, first-​generation members of the economic upper class have also been driven toward these schools or private day schools, in order to favor the cultural and social integration of their children into the established national upper classes (Baltzell, 1958). Many of these schools also attracted foreign established and new elites or members of the upper classes from former colonized states and developing countries that complied with dominant norms of European and North American elites (Pinçon & Pinçon-​Charlot, 2006). If their role in the national and international diffusion of an aristocratic and bourgeois cosmopolitan ethos among new elite fractions is therefore not new, the content of this ethos has tilted toward a new neoliberal model of education centered on the development of individuality and the making of “global citizens” and “global leaders.” This is partly the result of globalization discourses and trends that, as discussed in the second section of this chapter, have influenced schools’ curricula and partly the consequence of ideological changes among the national and international families that these schools aim to attract. Elite schools for girls in particular have recently started “grooming girls for the global” (Kenway et al., 2015, p. 155), and they arguably seem to be promoting and constructing femininity as the paragon of the accomplished neoliberal subject who should be flexible, mobile, responsible, self-​sufficient, and productive (Allan & Charles, 2014; Harris, 2004). According to Kenway et al. (2015), these “faux-​feminist” discourses in all-​girls schools, which are also “bubbles of privilege” (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2010), do not, however, effectively prepare girls for the highly masculine worlds of global elites. Only a minority move on and out into competitive global environments (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2014) while a growing proportion, despite having assimilated discourses explicitly encouraging them to be ambitious (Forbes & Lingard, 2015), in fact remain within national elite higher education (HE) systems and graduate job markets (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2016a). This suggests that while these women may self-​present as belonging to the “global elite,” the actual impact of their elite schooling on their international mobility paths remains limited.

A Variety of Cosmopolitan Views and Practices Across Social Groups Upper-​class families’ educational views and practices aim, to some extent, to imitate those of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie but are also strongly dependent on values, representations, and resources derived from their position in the social structure and the professional worlds in which they move. Lareau (2003) described upper-​and middle-​class (managers, college-​educated professionals) families’ dominant model through the concept of “concerted cultivation.” While her main purpose was to contrast this outlook with the “natural growth” model prevalent among the working class, our comparison between the concerted cultivation practices of the middle and upper classes and the cosmopolitan child-​rearing and educational models of the higher-​status social elites just described highlights one main difference. While the latter rely on a long-​term, osmotic transmission of dispositions, Lareau’s subjects of study were involved instead in a more deliberate and systematic modeling of their children’s attitudes and behavior

308    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten and in providing them with various assets to secure their professional futures and social positions (Coulangeon, 2018; van Zanten, 2009; Vincent & Ball, 2007). Owing to the growing globalization of the environments in which they live and work, these parents’ educational perspectives and choices now frequently include an international dimension. As shown by Weenink (2008), in the Netherlands, upper-​class parents and middle-​class families engaged on an upward social mobility path are very much aware of the need to prepare children for globalized futures, and they increasingly opt for newly established bilingual and IB tracks. While the more traditional bourgeoisie, attached to classical culture, continues to value the content and social rewards associated with a gymnasium education, differences can be observed between the cultural and economic fractions of the new upper classes. The first are more likely to be, in Weenink’s terms, “dedicated” cosmopolitans. These parents, who spoke at least two languages and had lived abroad, were keen to pass on to their children a mental disposition in which the world was viewed as a horizon, through conversations and activities both at home and at school, as well as through travel. “Pragmatic” cosmopolitans, on the other hand, were primarily managers with international work experience who valued the mastery of English mostly because of its expected advantages for HE and job markets. Analyzing the Brazilian case, Windle and Nogueira (2015) found an even clearer contrast between these economic and cultural fractions of the upper class. Instrumental or pragmatic cosmopolitan perspectives and strategies were far more common among owners of medium and large companies, while “dedicated” outlooks and practices were more frequent among highly qualified university professors and researchers. The first used their economic capital to pay for North American and European holidays for their families without any specific educational purposes but also for their children’s home tuition in English, short language courses abroad, or in national US-​oriented bilingual schools for purposes of distinction and advantages in the national social system and job market (Windle & Marie, 2019). The second favored extended experiences in high-​quality overseas education systems and an international education in European-​ oriented national schools, both to advantage their children in the selective Brazilian HE system and as a way of developing skills and values for purposes of personal enrichment and the pursuit of cultural ideals. Studies in the United States underline a more complex interplay between commitment to diversity and to cosmopolitanism among the national upper classes. In a research in the wealthy Silicon Valley area, Horst (2015) found that at the elementary school level, many parents viewed sending their children to local public schools with a large immigrant community as a commitment to inclusiveness and diversity. However, as children grew older, these parents were more likely to turn to charter and private schools and to revert to extracurricular activities and international travel to ensure their children’s acquisition of cosmopolitan skills valuable for their future professional and social lives. To varying degrees according to national configurations, middle-​class and sometimes working-​class “aspirant” parents also aim at preparing their children to evolve in globalized contexts. Their practices, however, are not the same as those of the upper

Education and the Sociology of Elites    309 classes not only because they have fewer economic resources at their disposal but also because they are more locally oriented and often turn to opportunities offered by state institutions. While having their children learn a foreign language, particularly English, is a central concern for many of them, especially in countries where English is considered an important instrumental and symbolic component of white-​collar jobs (Song, 2013), these parents mainly resort to language options and school trips to other countries, linguistic exchanges offered by local schools, or language classes offered by community centers. Moreover, because their practices are embedded in family and school contexts where elitist visions compete with other views, they lead to contrasting forms of cosmopolitanism among their children. While some turn to careers embracing neoliberal ideals of self-​responsibility and maximization of educational opportunities associated to economic globalization, others see globalization as an ideal implying openness to others and become interested in global careers oriented toward social change (Engel & Wilson, 2020).

Can Cosmopolitan Habitus Become Cosmopolitan Capital? Aside from showing that cosmopolitan practices are not homogeneous but socially stratified and differentiated (Maxwell, 2018), comparison across social groups also increases our theoretical understanding of how educational practices associated with internationalization are transformed into “cosmopolitan capital.” In the case of established elites, cosmopolitanism is both a disposition and a way of life, and cosmopolitan attributes are easily (and often unconsciously) transformed into cosmopolitan capital in different social fields such as education, work, or marriage. Although new upper classes that owe their position to professional and economic success have to deploy more conscious efforts to acquire cosmopolitan dispositions, their strategies of internationalization are quite effective because, contrary to those of lower social groups, they are strongly rooted in parental perspectives and early education practices. These lead children to view an international education, whether at home or abroad, as a natural extension of their family education (Carlson et al., 2017). On the basis of a recent multisited ethnography research conducted in five elite schools located in different areas of the Global North and South, Howard and Maxwell (2021) contend that they all put a strong emphasis, in discursive and practical forms adapted to each context, on a kind of cosmopolitanism combining a soft commitment to its ideological foundations and a strong focus on students’ acquisition of a cosmopolitan status. However, the long-​term effects that parents’ cosmopolitan investments have on their children’s HE trajectories and employment careers remain understudied (Bühlmann, 2020). Addressing these issues seems yet particularly important since existing studies have tended to reassert the major role played by inherited elite status when it comes to accessing transnational elite positions. Relying on her work on international schools attended by expatriate managers, Wagner (2020) has contended that international credentials do not lead to top positions if they are not accompanied by other types of capital (economic, cultural, and/​or social) and that they are most efficient when they are supported by prior family international dispositions. While some researchers

310    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten have argued that this is so because cosmopolitanism can only act as capital if it brings together specific forms of cultural and social capital (Bühlmann et al., 2013; Cousin & Chauvin, 2014), Wagner (2020) views cosmopolitan capital not as a form of capital per se but rather as a multiplier of economic, cultural, and social capital whose value can vary according to characteristics of social fields and national spaces. The process of transforming a cosmopolitan habitus into a cosmopolitan capital is further complicated in the case of students from the Global South who move to US or UK elite schools and universities with the expectation that studying in these establishments and places will confer them a global elite status. Many of them find on the contrary that race trumps wealth as their national background and racial characteristics work against their being perceived as privileged. Lillie’s research (2021a) shows nevertheless that students learn to navigate into these complex environments by relying on globally experienced members of their diasporas to get inside knowledge on how their identities are viewed in different places as well as which international degrees are recognized in their home country.

Transnational Educational Mobility Practices From Travel to Long-​Lasting Mobility Practices In some countries, and for some social groups, transnational mobility patterns are a central component of globalizing educational strategies. This mobility might merely consist in family travel, which is considered by the most ambitious, internationally oriented, and educated upper-​class parents as a way of fostering their children’s aspirations, broadening their horizons, and preparing them for globalized environments (Yemini & Maxwell, 2020). It might also consist in more extended travel by students pursuing a gap year abroad before entering university or during their HE studies. This type of geographical mobility may not be perceived as a conscious strategy and might, on the contrary, be presented as “disinterested” by upper-​class students, especially when they engage in humanitarian activities in less-​advantaged countries. These experiences abroad are nevertheless very likely to act as signals of their “elite cosmopolitanism” in HE and job markets (Brooks et al., 2012). Different fractions of the “global middle class” (Ball & Nikita, 2014) are also now frequently involved in more long-​lasting mobility practices. Managers and professionals, freelance experts, and employees in multinational companies—​who frequently move with their families—​make complex decisions concerning their children’s education. They might opt for private international schools and remain in an expatriate “bubble,” or, on the contrary, favor more mixed local schools in order to become “global citizens” by integrating in different national contexts (Forsey et al., 2015). These educational decisions also depend on parents’ long-​term plans and their relationship with their home country. As shown by Yemini and Maxwell (2018) for Israeli families living in London, parents—​and especially mothers—​involved in a process of “decoupling” from their former nation state choose schools that help their children integrate into their temporary host country. On the contrary, those wanting to preserve their children’s sense of

Education and the Sociology of Elites    311 belonging to their country of origin opt for schools whose language, religion, or pedagogy will facilitate their return.

“Study Mothers” and “Parachute Kids” More radical mobility strategies from “aspiring” parents from the economic fractions of the upper and middle classes have been documented in the Pacific area in association with economic and educational processes and with the diffusion of ideologies promoting the “global worker.” The case of Korean and Chinese “study mothers” accompanying their children to countries such as Singapore, the United States, or Canada (Huang & Yeoh, 2005), as well as the emergence of “parachute kids” (Zhou, 1998) and the “Pacific shuttle” of Hong Kong entrepreneurs relocating their children to schools in North America while also initiating transpacific economic investments (Ong, 1999), have been analyzed as part of broader transnational family economic strategies. Studying the international mobility patterns of Hong Kong families, Waters (2005) underlines, however, the importance of educational factors as well. For many Asian families, schooling children abroad is a way of circumventing the meritocratic selectiveness of their own educational systems and the fierce grade-​based competition for access to the best local schools and universities (Waters & Leung, 2014). Young people are not, however, passive recipients of their parents’ strategies. Many of them actively engage in their overseas education, claiming responsibility for choices promising high returns but implying strong sacrifices as well (Choi, 2021). Many of overseas-​educated nationals who return home become part of a national upper-​class enjoying particular privilege because of their cosmopolitan social and cultural capital, and then act to reproduce this specific class position by sending their children to international schools (Waters, 2007). Others, however, can become disconnected from their home country. Tse and Waters (2013) found that once they had become young adults, Hong Kong students sent at a young age to Canadian elite schools had no intention of achieving their parents’ initial goals of seeing their children return home. As Bourgouin (2007) showed in another study, children of East African political elites sent to London schools in the 1980s and 1990s, in order to get qualifications to achieve Pan-​African ideals, returned home disillusioned and disconnected from their families’ political strategies. They tended instead to identify with a cosmopolitan ethos of mobility that they enacted by living and working in the global city of Johannesburg.

Elite Schools’ Global Outreach and Cosmopolitan Identities Elite schools have traditionally been characterized by the “eliteness” of their students’ backgrounds (mostly defined by wealth) as well as by their role as instruments for the social reproduction of different elite fractions and as channels for access to power positions (Baltzell, 1958; Bourdieu, [1989] 1996; Giddens, 1974; Mills, 1956). In the United States and the United Kingdom, these schools, especially boarding schools, have also been

312    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten defined by the distinctiveness of their all-​round educational model emphasizing certain academic subjects (such as Latin and the humanities), specific games and sports (sometimes only practiced in these schools), and educational settings characterized by physical closure and by their “enveloping” hold on children’s lives for considerable periods of time (Cookson & Persell, 1985; Wakeford, 1969; Walford, 2005). Subsequent studies have shown that, due to the growing symbolic value of meritocracy, these schools are now more academically selective and more likely to highlight their academic results and the proportion of their students gaining entry to selective higher education institutions (HEIs) (Kenway et al., 2017). In the United States, Khan (2011) pointed out changes in elite boarding schools’ academic curriculum, which now values breadth rather than depth, as well as in their underlying social model in which instilling formal respect for social hierarchies has been replaced by the importance ascribed to social ease. Gaztambide-​Fernandez (2009, p. 26) has, in turn, identified five major criteria defining the perimeter of elite schools—​being typologically elite (“their identification as independent schools”), scholastically elite (a “sophisticated curriculum”), historically elite (the “role of elite social networks in their historical development”), demographically elite (“the population that attends schools”), and geographically elite (schools’ physical character and location)—​although this leaves open the debate of the status of schools that share only some of these characteristics. Cosmopolitanism and globalization are additional dimensions that complexify the definition and dynamics of elite schools (Kenway & Fahey, 2014; van Zanten, 2018a) and raise novel questions. If the eliteness of schools depends on the web of relations in which they are embedded (Khan, 2016), are these relations fundamentally changed when elite schools systematically reach out to students beyond national borders, especially considering that international students’ social status can be less certain or not as well recognized in the host country? To what extent can the internationalization of elite schools’ intake be linked to deliberate changes in these establishments’ curricular offer, internal dynamics, and public image? In order to answer these questions, we first focus on the changes generated by internationalization in the offer of traditional elite schools and on the transnational connections between these schools. We then examine whether new international curricular tracks are contributing to the expansion of elite schools or whether they constitute a different set of educational institutions catering to pretenders to elite status rather than to established elites.

A Global Turn Among Elite Schools? The Colonial Heritage Although elite schools were connected from the outset to national spheres of power—​ either through their contribution to unifying a national elite, as in the United States after the Civil War (Baltzell, 1958), or through their “incestuous” ties with key national institutions (Giddens, 1974) or state corps (Bourdieu, 1989; van Zanten & Maxwell,

Education and the Sociology of Elites    313 2015)—​they also played a central role in developing and legitimating imperial overseas colonies. Research conducted in the 1960s highlighted the role of elite English and colonial schools in constructing the British imperial elite by mixing English and local elite members and fostering a sense of camaraderie among them (Bamford, 1967; Wakeford, 1969). These studies focused more on characterizing the colonial elites themselves than on analyzing how these schools exported the “public school” model to colonial contexts (Mangan, 2013; Sandgren, 2017). An ambitious multisited global ethnography led by Jane Kenway and colleagues (2017) has nevertheless provided new data and interpretations on elite schools founded under the British Empire in Australia, Barbados, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and South Africa. These schools still present many features related to their past as British colonial schools but now aim to globalize their institutional image, curricula, and ties with institutions and social groups in other countries (Kenway & Fahey, 2014). The hybridization of older and new influences is apparent in their selective and strategic use of history and traditions to reposition themselves both in the national context (where they now frequently face competition from newly established schools), and in the emerging global market of elite schools where they aim to attract rising elites from various countries (Kenway & Fahey, 2014; Rizvi, 2014). It is also apparent in the values they promote, which mix loyalty to the postcolonial nation state and the inculcation of the supremacy of Western White culture with more liberal versions of cosmopolitanism (Ayling, 2019). For these schools, remaining attractive also implies maintaining old connections and establishing new ones with HEIs. Regular flows of students to Oxbridge and other highly regarded British HEIs are supported by host institutions (scholarships, financial support, etc.) and still bring considerable material and symbolic returns to schools, as well as to the nation states where they are located that sometimes directly sponsor this transnational mobility (Ye & Nylander, 2015). These schools are, however, also developing connections with other prestigious HEIs, especially in the United States, in response to pressures from students and parents keen to optimize HE careers by accessing world-​ranked universities (Tarc & Tarc, 2015). Lycées français à l’étranger, which also developed as part of France’s colonial policy, especially in North Africa and in several African countries, now constitute one of the largest state-​based networks of international schools. Some of these lycées were originally created for the French colonial elite and only started to accept local elite students in the 1950s. Although, unfortunately, they have not been the focus of the same degree of attention as the British colonial elite schools, it is well-​known that many of them, having remained highly academically selective and providing an advanced French official curriculum, serve as pathways to elite HE tracks in France (Vermeren, 2011). The situation in Latin American countries such as Argentina, colonized by the Spanish but where elite schools were also founded by Irish Catholic congregations or imitated the English public school model, is particularly interesting to observe. In these contexts, the elites’ most brilliant children, especially boys, are sometimes sent to academically selective state schools that also traditionally trained future elites with middle-​ class or lower-​class backgrounds (Gessaghi & Mendez, 2015; Mendez, 2018). However,

314    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten the established elites, as in nearby Chile (Ilabaca, 2021), massively continue to send their children to elite private schools, less because of their alleged superior academic level than of the moral education and the social networks they provide. The distinctiveness and attractiveness of these schools are also related to their renewed ties with powerful countries, which are now visible in their provision of bilingual curricula for students planning to continue their studies abroad and to live and work in internationalized environments (Ziegler et al., 2018).

Elite Schools’ Strategies of Internationalization and International Elite Schools Strategies of internationalization are not specific to elite schools located in former colonized states. As attracting foreign students gradually came to the forefront of national educational policy agendas (Ball et al., 2007; Ball, 2012), many elite schools started to internationalize their intake, programs, networks, and public image as a way to “stay ahead in the game” (Kenway & Fahey, 2014) and preserve their elite status. A key move in order to distinguish themselves internationally has been for elite schools to cultivate cross-​national networks with similar schools that boost their students’ mobility and increase their international social capital. In some cases, this has been done with the financial and organizational support of elite nonprofit organizations, such as Round Square and the Duke of Edinburgh Award, which connect elite secondary schools worldwide through conferences, cultural and humanitarian trips, and student exchanges, and provide a space for elite schools to talk about their practices (Kenway et al., 2017). English as well as Irish secondary schools have taken marked initiatives to internationalize their intake because the fees paid by foreign students are strongly sought after (Courtois, 2015; Maxwell & Aggleton, 2016a). These initiatives have been successful owing to the attractiveness of their educational model and of their connections with Oxbridge and other prestigious English HEIs. The aura of the public school ideal that they represent for various international audiences is so pervasive that they tend to underplay their role in preparing students for cosmopolitan ways of life and global HE and job markets (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2016a, 2016b), capitalizing instead on their “Britishness” in brochures, websites, and other tools of self-​ promotion and self-​ presentation (Brooks & Waters, 2014). Similarly, boarding prep schools in the United States are not encouraged to adapt an educational model that, together with the fact that they channel the great majority of their students to elite North American universities (Mullen, 2009), makes them particularly attractive to established and aspiring elites around the globe. The situation of French elite schools is quite different. These schools have not massively internationalized their intake partly due to a language barrier but also owing to their attachment to a specific educational model strongly associated with French language and history. French secondary schools are also much less attractive internationally due to the characteristics of the French tertiary elite system, which rewards close connections with French secondary schools and with French high culture, even in scientific curricula (Darmon, 2013; François & Berkouk, 2018; van Zanten, 2018b). Moreover,

Education and the Sociology of Elites    315 although the landscape of French elite HEIs has undergone profound changes, with some institutions now widely internationalized with respect to their intake, faculty, curricula, and connections with job markets, the most prestigious of them still reflect the fact that they were designed as prerecruitment tracks to French state corps open only to French citizens (van Zanten & Maxwell, 2015). Alongside these national elite schools, other types of schools, especially in Switzerland, promote themselves as being the only truly international elite schools in their conception and general orientation. These schools started to develop at the turn of the 20th century in a country with a highly globalized economy where schools played an integral role in the international strategies of firms and local actors alike. They share many of the attributes that Terwillinger (1972) used to define international schools: welcoming a substantial number of students who are not citizens of the host country; being ruled by a board of directors of diverse nationalities; having a teaching staff that has experienced cultural diversity and champion it as an ideal; and implementing a curriculum combining pedagogical methods and content from different national models. New kinds of international schools are also being developed by new for-​profit actors in global cities around the world. They have been identified as education multinationals, responsible for expanding “edu-​business” (Ball, 2012) internationally. Two examples are Nord Anglia, founded in England in 1972 and operating 81 international schools in 32 countries (mainly in global cities) as of 2023; and GEMS Education, founded in Dubai and running international schools mainly in the Middle East (Ridge et al., 2016). With their promise of training “future global leaders,” these schools, which mainly offer IB tracks or international versions of British and American curricula, aim to attract new moneyed upper-​class and middle-​class families.

Creating a Close-​Knit Global Elite? If some elite schools have strongly internationalized their intake, the extent to which they are creating a close-​knit global elite needs to be further explored. Existing studies show that they do not seem systematically to foster friendships and long-​term networks between young people from across the globe. In former colonial elite schools, the co-​ presence of students with national class backgrounds and global class routes generates processes of segregation and conflict, although, in the longer run, these schools do seem to be reconfiguring the class/​race/​nation nexus (Kenway et al., 2017). In English elite schools, local families seem worried about overseas students diluting the “Englishness” of their children’s education (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2016a). Drewski et al. (2018) have in turn shown that “symbolic boundaries of nationality” persist in a European school in Brussels where status hierarchies and prejudice based on language skills, youth lifestyles, and effortless academic achievement associated with country of birth create strong intraschool status divisions, especially between Northwestern and Eastern European students. In Swiss international schools, Lillie (2021b) has shown that geopolitical tensions tend to structure the relationships between students from diverse national backgrounds, with Ukrainian and Tatar students, for instance, “navigating an uneasy line” with

316    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten Russian students between a common identity and language, on the one hand, and national belongings, on the other. Lillie also hints that students are aware of their geopolitical vulnerability or status when it comes to actually being able to become “citizens of the world,” just as they are aware of their exclusion from certain transnational spheres of power and contestation. Furthermore, social integration can be hindered across racial and national lines. This is the case for Chinese-​and Russian-​speaking students who perceive themselves as second-​rate and feel stigmatized either owing to their racial or national assignation or because other students view them as “new rich.”

New International Curricula and Schools The Emergence of a New Model of International Education A complementary way of exploring the links between globalization and elites in the field of education is to analyze the relationship between the expansion of international curricula and schools and the rise of a transnational elite. The emergence of a new model of international education can historically be traced back to the turn of the 20th century, with the foundation by transnational agencies and corporations of schools specifically designed for upper-​class expatriates. Two of the most well-​known of these schools—​the Geneva International School and the United Nations International School—​were respectively created by and for members of the League of Nations and the United Nations, that, in 1968, designed what remains the most sophisticated and popular international curriculum: the IB (Dugonjic-​Rodwin, 2020). The requirements for obtaining an IB diploma include mastery of six compulsory subjects (literature, languages, social sciences, sciences, mathematics, and the arts), three of which must be taken at an advanced level. The program, however, also includes an “international” subject (“world literature in translation”) and a meta-​subject, the “theory of knowledge.” In terms of pedagogy, it favors a student-​centered approach and an ethics of cultural openness and service. Using Basil Bernstein’s (1971) categories, this curriculum can be described as an original combination of a classic European “collected code” (with high-​status contents clearly separated from each other and an emphasis on the mastery of specialized knowledge certified by external examinations) and of an “Anglo-​American” integrated code (where contents stand in relation to each other and the focus is on ways of knowing and on creating connections with everyday knowledge and activities). Focusing on the promotion of internationalist values and training (Matthews, 1989), the Creativity Action Service (CAS) program of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) promotes global engagement with world-​scale issues (world hunger, poverty, climate change, refugee crises, access to education) through shared events, humanitarian trips, volunteering abroad, community service programs, and international charity. While claiming to educate “compassionate” and “courageous” leaders, these activities also help students stand out in university admissions (Jones, 2014; Khan, 2011; Persell & Cookson, 1985). Renewing an old elite tradition of charity and “privileged benefaction” (Kenway & Fahey, 2014), they also arguably lend new

Education and the Sociology of Elites    317 global meaning to privilege, by embedding it in a global imaginary of inequality and by inculcating and reproducing racialized hierarchies (Gaztambide-​ Fernandez & Angod, 2019). Another model of international education increasingly popular among elite schools is GCE defined by the Global Citizenship Foundation as “a transformative, lifelong pursuit that involves both curricular learning and practical experience to shape a mindset to care for humanity and the planet, and to equip individuals with global competence to undertake responsible actions aimed at forging more just, peaceful, secure, sustainable, tolerant and inclusive societies.” In practice, however, this “global consciousness” approach coexists with the acquisition of “global competencies” believed to be necessary to achieve prosperity in a highly competitive global marketplace (Oxley & Morris, 2013). In elite schools, both approaches coexist, the first serving less to encourage a critical and responsible response to social inequality and diversity than to instill in students a sense of moral superiority, reinforced by the second approach (Howard & Freeman, 2020; Kenway & Lazarus, 2017).

Is International Education Appealing for National Elites? While GCE and some elements of the IBDP are clearly attractive to elite parents, the massive worldwide expansion of the IB (from 100 schools in 1982 [Bunnell, 2008] to 5,400 schools offering at least one IB program in 148 countries in late 2020) shows that this model of international education and its local adaptations appeal to many audiences around the world (Resnik, 2012; Steiner-​Khamsi & Dugonjic-​Rodwin, 2018). The IB curriculum is attractive for some upper-​and middle-​class parents because it is socially but also intellectually distinctive. This is the case in Canada and the United States but also in Australia. In this latter context, Doherty and colleagues (Doherty, Mu, & Shield, 2009; Doherty et al., 2012) have shown that parents of students in IB tracks are attracted to its cosmopolitan aura but also to its “collected code” dimension: they value the compulsory study of a broad set of subjects, the focus on the best of “Western cultural heritage” and traditions, and the emphasis given to external examinations, that is, a set of educational features that are not well-​represented in the more “integrated code” national curriculum. In European countries with a long tradition of elite schooling, IB and other types of international tracks and schools face stronger competition from more established schools and tracks offering curricula closer to the collected code and viewed by elite groups as more apt for social reproduction. However, national situations also vary. In England, the elite is still trained in traditional “public schools” whose curricula epitomize a mix of these two codes (Walford, 1986) and that are now more open to international culture and practices (Maxwell & Aggleton, 2016a). Frequently located in privileged neighborhoods, the number of schools offering the IBDP has, however, grown considerably as upper-​class parents consider it a prestigious and well-​rounded alternative to the system of A-​Levels (Resnik, 2011). In the Netherlands, international classes are attractive to upper-​class families, but less so to the traditional elite who view national gymnasium curricula as the best preparation for both national and international HE and professional futures. France is a more

318    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten extreme case, with very few IB-​accredited schools (20 in 2021), generally private and mainly welcoming children of expatriate and binational couples. The attractiveness of the IBDP is also largely due to the fact that it is growingly recognized by well-​ranked universities. In the United States and Canada, numerous prestigious universities grant credits or advanced placement equivalents for students in IB advanced courses. In other national systems, however, the IBDP and other types of international tracks do not give any additional advantages and can even impede access to elite HE settings. This is the case, for instance, in Sweden and France where scientific tracks remain “the royal road” (Lidegran, 2017) to the most selective and renowned HEIs. In France, moreover, the chances of accessing these institutions and tracks is highly dependent on having attended a prestigious public or private lycée possessing its own classes préparatoires or well connected to those in other similar lycées (van Zanten, 2018b), in the same way that access to the grandes écoles is highly dependent on the type of classes préparatoires attended (François & Berkouk, 2018). For these reasons, as well as the language barrier, their attractiveness to international students and their access remain limited, even though some grandes écoles have developed specific admission procedures for international students and are well connected to HEIs abroad (Darchy-​ Koechlin, 2012; Delespierre, 2019).

International Tracks as Competitive Assets in School Markets While IB programs and other international tracks were originally set up in selective schools willing to reaffirm their status and respond to demands from upper-​class parents (Aguiar & Nogueira, 2012), they have since been adopted by other types of schools, sometimes in lighter versions, in order to improve their image and limit pupil flight. In the United States, IB tracks have become a key element of the marketing of state magnet schools to attract middle-​class parents who would otherwise avoid local schools in racially mixed neighborhoods (Resnik, 2015, 2020). In France, “European classes” constitute a “light” form of internationalization. These classes are present in many elite schools, where a small number of students follow them to enhance their academic CVs, especially if they plan to apply to French HEIs that have taken a “global turn” or to prestigious universities abroad. School managers and local educational authorities also use European classes to attract gifted students from the upper and middle classes and to enhance the reputation of schools in mixed urban areas. These softer versions of internationalization offer a striking contrast with the schools that promote themselves as “truly” international, showing that the definition and perimeter of what constitutes an international school remain subject to debate (Wagner, 2020).

Conclusion In line with sociological studies on postcolonial schools (Kenway et al., 2017) and with historical accounts of elite education (Duval, 2009; O’Neill, 2014; O’Neill & Sandgren,

Education and the Sociology of Elites    319 2019), we have suggested in this chapter that owing to their ethos—​largely infused with European cosmopolitan ideals—​but also to their intake—​reflecting existing power relations and cultural influences across countries—​many well-​established elite schools may have always been cosmopolitan without necessarily presenting themselves as such. It nevertheless seems necessary to distinguish this model of education, which we might call “conservative” in terms of its role in the intergenerational transmission of status by established elites around the globe, from new neoliberal versions of cosmopolitanism that focus less on reproducing social order through traditions, and more on producing the responsible, flexible, and mobile subjects required by the prevailing economic and social context. However, rather than one supplanting the other, what we see instead is the hybridization of these educational models and the emergence of more subtle boundaries separating established elites from aspiring ones between—​but also within—​ elite schools. A subsidiary question relates to the specific kind of cosmopolitanism being encouraged in new international tracks and schools. Some of them, especially IB schools and GCE-​accredited schools, have defined what constitutes a good international education through a set of curricular choices. They are also clearly involved in students’ moral education through the renewal of existing charitable practices among elites and elite schools that create new ties between privileged and underprivileged groups while, at the same time, symbolically reinforcing the social distance between them. These schools and tracks have not, however, replaced traditional elite schools but coexist with them, providing an alternative type of education to some fractions of the elite and upper classes for whom they provide “navigation skills” for future HE and professional careers. Other schools, generally catering for middle-​class groups, offer a lighter version of international education that cannot easily be transformed into cosmopolitan capital. They nevertheless help diffuse new neoliberal forms of cosmopolitanism across the social and institutional spectrum, while contributing to families’ and schools’ strategies of distinction. Another issue lies in the degree to which established, but also recent, elites are embracing the new opportunities associated with educational globalization by constructing international pathways for their children either at home or through experiences of study abroad. The answer to this question is not as clear-​cut as it might seem. National schools and tracks are still very much sought after by both groups in countries such as France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, or the United States that have a clear set of elite schools and tracks leading to prestigious HEIs and HE fields of study. Opting for internationally oriented schools and tracks might represent new opportunities either for new-​moneyed upper-​class fractions to consolidate their social position or for aspiring middle-​class groups to move up the social scale. These choices are risky, however, not only because they are costly but because they presuppose strong adaptation skills among young people and because it is not easy to determine in advance what the market and social value of international educational trajectories will be, as this varies strongly across social fields and national contexts (Garza & Wagner, 2015; Wagner, 2020).

320    Caroline Bertron and Agnès van Zanten The fact that not all established and aspiring elites are adopting international pathways for their children and that considerable variation exists across countries and social groups should not, however, lead us to conclude that these processes are not significant. Rather, they should be seen as one of several alternative ways through which, on the one hand, dominant groups and dominant countries reassert their power and reinforce structural inequalities (Alvaredo et al., 2018; Cousin et al., 2018; Heemskerk & Takes, 2016; Piketty, 2014) and, on the other hand, certain groups and individuals, as well as certain countries, legitimate and conquer new social positions on the global scene. Future research should explore the precise content of cosmopolitan and transnational experiences across social groups with a view to examine the extent to which these can still be used by elites and upper-​class groups to reproduce their advantage given that these experiences can only be transformed into capital if associated to other types of cultural, economic, and social capital, and the extent to which they contribute to further divisions among elite fractions (Bühlmann et al., 2013; Prieur & Savage, 2013) or constitute pathways for social mobility.

Note 1. Both secondary schools and higher education institutions contribute to the education and training of elites. Nevertheless, we have chosen to focus solely on secondary and pre-​ university schools and tracks because they have enduringly been the primary focus of the sociology of elite education in most national spaces and because, owing both to higher levels of social exclusivity and to their small size, common curriculum, and “well-​rounded” socialization of students, they play a more important role as pipelines to the elite than elite universities themselves (Bond, 2012; Reeves et al., 2017). An additional reason is that although globalization is one of the major topics in the vast literature on higher education today, it is seldom analyzed with the specific aim of enhancing the study of global elites (for a comprehensive collection of works on global elite education, from early education to university, see Maxwell et al., 2018).

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chapter 15

Mobilizing W h i t e ne s s Race, Futurity, and Globalization of Higher Education Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards

Introduction Despite the ubiquity of global mass movements for racial justice, race and racism as a transnational force has received negligible attention in the globalization of higher education (HE) literature. Over the past two decades, the HE globalization literature has emphasized the drastic effects of globalization on HE’s core objects of study—​through technological changes, increased academic mobility, the global knowledge economy, transnational actors, and internationalization of curricula, students, and partnerships—​ and reshaping the functions, borders, and landscape of HE institutions and those who work and learn in them (see Brown et al., 2011; Cantwell & Kauppinen, 2014; King et al., 2012; Shahjahan & Kezar, 2013; Sidhu, 2006). However, remaining undertheorized are the ways in which race, and specifically Whiteness, as a cultural and social paradigm, and as a structural force underpins this transnational phenomenon (a recent exception is Shahjahan & Edwards, 2021). The terms “globalization” and “internationalization” are used interchangeably in the HE field, particularly in practice. However, several scholars have offered meaningful distinctions (Altbach & Knight, 2007; Cantwell & Maldonando, 2009; King et al., 2012; Tight, 2021). Drawing on these scholars, we also differentiate the two. Derivative of a nation state ontological standpoint, we interpret internationalization as focusing on the relations and/​or connections between nations (i.e., mobility of people, culture, and knowledge, and/​or involvement of HE institutions across national borders). Meanwhile, our understanding of globalization encompasses the manifestations of internationalization but also includes relations or agency that spans, flows over, and/​or ignores nation states. Such relations or agency include flows and disjunctures of culture, capital, technology, media, and the growing role of non-​HE transnational actors (e.g., commercial rankers, publishing companies, and/​or global media) transcending and reconstituting

Mobilizing Whiteness   329 national borders mitigated locally with/​in HE sectors and institutions globally (see Marginson, 2011; Shahjahan, 2019; Sidhu, 2006). In short, we understand globalization as involving flows, agency, and disjunctures tied to asymmetrical movements, networks, and untethered economies furthering colonial power relations and cultural imperialism (Sidhu, 2006; Shahjahan, 2019). While racialized politics of global HE have been discussed in relation to race, these accounts tend to be about racism toward groups (e.g., international students or faculty) within institutions or countries (see Ahmed, 2016; Lee, 2020; Lee & Rice, 2007; Suspitsyna, 2021; Yao, et al., 2019). Such accounts tend to be trapped within national container accounts of society (Shahjahan & Kezar, 2013) (recent exceptions include Chatterjee & Barber, 2021; Ress, 2019; Stein & Andreotti, 2017) and/​or are concerned with mapping and documenting contemporary racisms in or between specific geographies (Christian, 2019, p. 171). We suggest that our understanding of globalization of HE would benefit from an intersectional understanding of critical Whiteness studies and temporal studies to help racialize and further temporalize this phenomenon. Such an integrated approach would also illuminate the interconnections and complexities between the affective, political, sociocultural, and economic relations that remain unexplored in the HE globalization literature (Lee & Stensaker, 2021). Our point of departure for this chapter stems from Marginson’s (2012) suggestion that globalization of HE “fashions mentalities, and is fashioned by those mentalities in return” (p. 22). Extending our earlier work on Whiteness as futurity in the globalization of HE (Shahjahan & Edwards, 2022), we aim to demonstrate the racial asymmetries underpinning globalization of HE by drawing on contemporary mobility trends of people and resources in HE. We suggest that a critical race temporal account of contemporary mobility trends would help further complicate and unpack how a particular Whiteness as futurity orients movements we perceive spatially in globalization of HE. Whiteness as futurity uncovers the ways in which local subjects1 (nation states, universities, and individuals) do not autonomously direct local HE processes, but instead are influenced by the global pressures of Whiteness. By “Whiteness,” we refer to a set of “narrative structural positions, rhetorical tropes and habits of perception” (Dyer, 1997, p. 12) standing for the normal. Whiteness, as a state of knowing and being, creates a superstructure (i.e., racial capitalism) that privileges White people, institutions, and cultural norms and orients social and political environments toward the benefit and protection of White life (Ahmed, 2007). In other words, Whiteness is as an unfinished process that reproduces itself through (a) structural (contemporary practices tied to historical global wealth accumulation and political economic power), and (b) symbolic (normative/​lifestyle, imaginaries, cultural narrative oriented) dimensions (Christian, 2019). As the foundation of all racial hierarchies since modernity, Whiteness helps reproduce social inequalities stemming from race and racism in various ways in various contexts (Christian, 2019). While Whiteness is the centrifugal force organizing global racial hierarchies, we also suggest that race and racism are not uniform across the globe but continue as a transnational

330    Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards phenomenon. Lack of uniformity—​malleability—​supports the ability of Whiteness to become (re)centered in various contexts. By futurity, we are referring to a state of being tied to an imagined time that is yet-​to-​ come, and/​or how this yet-​to-​come is invoked (Baldwin, 2012). Futurity can also be understood as a form of “absent presence.” As Baldwin put it: “From tropes of uncertainty, Utopia, apocalypse, prophesy, hope, fear, possibility and potentiality, the future shapes the present in all manner of ways” (Baldwin, 2012, p. 172). In the present chapter we first briefly delineate our Whiteness as futurity framework. We next demonstrate how Whiteness as futurity informs mobility of (a) imaginaries (via popular culture), (b) people (students and academics), and (c) resources (e.g., internationalization initiatives, cross-​border HE, and education hubs). We conclude that globalization discussions need to consider its complicity, tensions, and complexity with modern onto-​epistemic grammar2 and desires for quick fixes.

Whiteness as Futurity In a previous publication, we articulated the conceptual framework “Whiteness as futurity” (Shahjahan & Edwards, 2022). Drawing on two domains of knowledge—​Whiteness and temporal studies (see Ahmed, 2007; Baldwin, 2012; Christian, 2019; Lipsitiz, 2006; Mills, 2020)3—​we delineate through the framework how the globalization of Whiteness governs futurity through three distinct pathways. First, Whiteness influences future aspirations of HE subjects, such as individuals, governments, institutions, and/​or transnational actors. Contemporary sociopolitical asymmetries reinforce the power of Whiteness globally and shape invocations of the future. Individuals and institutions seeking global subjectivity must aspire to standards produced by/​for Whiteness. Second, Whiteness as futurity creates conditions that make it harmful to not invest or continue the investment in Whiteness. Said differently, Whiteness produces global parameters that compel particular resource investments. Finally, Whiteness maintains global supremacy by remaining malleable enough to disguise or superimpose and, therefore, (re)center itself in multiple contexts. Unlike the previous tenets which function as actions and responses to a global landscape of Whiteness, malleability is an inherent characteristic of Whiteness that makes its futurity possible. Whiteness as malleable suggests understanding White supremacy beyond corporeal bodies, but as “a process, not a “thing” (Christian, 2019, p. 179). Thus, a malleable understanding of Whiteness recognizes that non-​White bodies and spaces can symbolically and materially project and gain advantages of Whiteness. As Christian (2019) noted, Whiteness offers global gradations. While the United States and United Kingdom may be the “whitest white,” China, Japan, and South Korea offer an accessible Whiteness to the Eurasian region. Relatedly, although sub-​Saharan Africa exists globally as the “Blackest Black,” South Asia occupies geopolitical “Blackness” in the Asian region. These racialized containers also include internal malleability. For instance, although

Mobilizing Whiteness   331 Han Chinese may benefit from the privileges of accessible Whiteness, this benefit is not “within reach” for other Chinese ethnic groups (Ahmed, 2007, p. 152). The same could be said about high-​caste Indians, White Brazilians, or Habeshas in Eastern Africa (see Christian, 2019). However, this presumed flexibility belies the ways in which Whiteness shapes periphery locales conformity toward a Whiteness orientation. By malleability, we are acknowledging the persistence of White domination globally, even in those regions that are absent of White bodies and/​or institutions. Through these three pathways, Whiteness constrains pasts and presents while producing White futures. Furthermore, the three characteristics detailed earlier do not emerge in a linear or hierarchical manner, but instead symbiotically, existing independently while also catalyzing the potency of one another. In the following sections, we explore “Whiteness as futurity” through global mobilities. Specifically, we excavate how Whiteness animates particular global flows, entrenching White futurity through various modes of movement. We provide a critical race temporal account of societies, institutions, and people deciding on mobility based on aspirations, investments, and malleability shaped by Whiteness. Our analysis focuses on mobility of imaginaries, people, and resources.

Mobility of Imaginaries Global “mediascapes” feed the aspirations for Whiteness in global HE (Appadurai, 1996). Popular culture plays a public pedagogic role in constituting social imaginaries tied to Whiteness, serving as the catalyst for mobility. Such imaginaries are “image-​ centered, narrative-​based accounts of strips of reality” that help form one’s “imagined lives” or of others living elsewhere (Appadurai, 1996, p. 35). In the context of global HE, popular culture, such as movies, TV shows, music, social media, and so on, provide ongoing opportunities for imagined selves within particular spaces, prompting desires and action in the form of movement and mobility (i.e., students). As Kölbe (2020) noted, imaginaries of “other places, people, and cultures have always been a part of social life in the form of songs, paintings, myths, and stories” (p. 89), but amid modern techno and mediascapes, students who have not traveled abroad come to know about other cultures before they even engage in mobility through popular culture representations. In an era where more people than ever imagine the possibility of studying or working in other parts of the globe, the social imaginary holds growing White power. The grammar of success embedded in Whiteness is evident in global media as media attach positive feelings or aspirations to certain regions, creating a global narrative that precarity is solved through accessing White regions. As Islam (2019) noted, global media circulates “images of wellbeing, happiness, freedom and success available in the developed countries” (p. 5) among students in the Global South. For example, the global circulation of White media “global consumerist imaginations” are interpreted as “individual imaginations” and “imagined dreams and desires” compelling Bangladeshi

332    Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards students’ movement toward Australian HE (Islam, 2019, p. 3). Furthermore, in a recent study on Nepalese university students, Kölbe (2020) noted that “stories about and images of Nepalis studying in North America, Europe and Australia enter young people’s daily routines through a host of information channels, including local newspapers, educational marketing campaigns and online social media” (p. 99). Given the malleability of Whiteness and how it manifests in non-​White regions (e.g., Asia, Africa, etc.), global media constitutes the desired value of an international degree (i.e., White HEI credential) in the job market. Popular culture also mediates cultural familiarity among students in non-​White regions, shaping the desires for choosing certain Asian study destinations to get closer to the icons and symbols of popular culture. K-​Pop (Korean pop), K-​dramas (Korean drama), Chinese movie idols, and Japanese cultural symbols, such as anime, manga, and J-​Pop (Japanese pop), are examples of popular culture through which the Asian audiences desire to move eastward (Sidhu & Ishikawa 2022, p. 408). In the last decade, for instance, due to hallyu (the Korean wave) in Asia, South Korea has emerged as an increasingly popular study abroad destination among Asian students, in part by their consumption of Korean popular culture in the form of movies, television dramas, and music (Takeda, 2020). Amid a global mediascape, students transform from consumers of particular popular culture (e.g., hallyu) into cosmopolitan global outlooking individuals, thus desiring certain study destinations (Takeda, 2020). As we noted elsewhere (Shahjahan & Edwards, 2022), malleable Whiteness constitutes Japan, China, and South Korea higher in the Whiteness spectrum than other regions, such as South Asia or Southeast Asia. In short, global media via popular culture plays an important role in controlling imagined selves and aspirations and evoking particular investments in moving toward certain destinations for studying. Such aspirations and investment reinforce White dominant nations’ and institutions’ occupation of the center. Such global HE social imaginaries are products of “global cultural flows” meant for consumption (Appadurai, 1996, p. 30). As a form of public pedagogy, popular culture shapes the desires for Whiteness and mobility toward White regions. In recent analyses of Global North popular culture, Reynolds (2014) suggests that limited student representations in American popular culture “bear huge potential for (mis)education particularly for answers to questions about who belongs; it could seem that only white men [and women] truly belong in HE” (p. 96). However, the notion of Whiteness is also projected by the local popular culture industry. For instance, Balabantaray (2020) illuminated how local media including Bollywood normalizes Whiteness as desirable among Indian university students, such as fairer skin, Western outfits, and speaking English as reflecting higher intelligence. In other words, Whiteness is made malleable and reachable, which in turn shapes aspirations to go to certain study abroad destinations. As Kölbe (2020) argued, “images and stories circulated by the various actors involved in international education can further manifest historically rooted imaginative geographies in which the ‘West’ is seen to be more sophisticated and advanced than the ‘East,’ as these global connections are always underpinned by local status hierarchies” (p. 96). In short, while mediating cultural curiosity and associating Whiteness with better quality, status, and economic outcomes, popular culture

Mobilizing Whiteness   333 circulates aspirations for Whiteness among audiences, thus catalyzing mobility toward certain destinations. Finally, the grammar of success embedded in Whiteness is evident in institutional branding efforts (e.g., university websites, social media, and/​or brochures) tied to their global status (Stack, 2016, 2020). For instance, marketing departments in the Global North construct the Global South as a population whose aspirations are to “do well,” “be Western,” to acquire the status of “a good English speaker” (Robertson & Komljenovic, 2016, p. 598). Such branding efforts are not simply about representing one’s current content, but rather highlight the aspirational realities of regions or institutions. Many non-​ White regions will use White regions as reference societies to brand their HE locations. For instance, Singapore sought to establish itself as the “Boston” of Asia, borrowing from the Global North. To this end, Sidhu, Ho, and Yeoh noted, “Singapore was branded as ‘the Boston of the East’ and much was made of its networks with Anglophone knowledge centers including the presence of international staff from leading Anglophone universities” (cited in Sidhu & Ishikawa, 2022, p. 411). In a recent analysis of websites of four universities in China and South Korea seeking to become world-​class universities, Bae et al. (2021) found that imagery depicting foreign students and scholars on their campuses, or specific events held for international cooperation, across the four universities featured White-​skinned people. Given all four institutions highlighted their interactions with Whiteness as a means to show their capacity for catching global talents and emphasizing their internationalization, this highlights how Whiteness is an investment but also aspirational. Similarly, Estera and Shahjahan’s (2019) critical analysis of commercial university rankers’ websites’ visual imagery of students found that Whiteness is normalized through imagery leading to the naturalization of Whiteness and alienation of other racial groups. As they asserted, in/​visible Whiteness informs the various signifying practices positioning the White student as the HE default student. These interactive meanings thus construct who belongs and is desirable in global HE. All of these institutional, national, and rankers’ efforts highlight the malleable nature of Whiteness as its uptake manifests in different forms (i.e., internationalization efforts, English language, and/​or branding) and are taken for granted. However, resource distribution informs global media circulating and forming non-​ White imaginaries. Resource precarity produces aspirations for security, and media communicates the message that the Global North can provide access to the resources needed to protect from poverty through a future subjectivity in the global marketplace. This has implications not only for individual pursuits but also local advancement. Intellectual resources and talent—​not just bodies and ideas—​move from periphery to the White core (Schopf, 2020).

Mobility of People Whiteness as futurity mobilizes bodies in particular ways. Global flows attract and repel particular bodies to particular locations. As such, human movements not only map

334    Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards Whiteness geographically but also entrench White aspirations, investments, and malleability. The mobilization of bodies for White futures emerges through various pathways and for a variety of reasons, such as pursuit of global subjectivity, contextual privileges, personal desires made possible by White national affiliations, and affective attachments. Access to global resources or global subjectivity animates one of the most obvious movements. Whiteness as futurity compels many students in the Global South to aspire toward opportunities in the Global North. The number of internationally mobile students has doubled since 2005 to 5.6 million in 2018 (OECD, 2020), and it is expected to grow to 8 million by 2025 (Cheng, 2021). According to a report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2020), Asian students are the largest group of internationally mobile students across all levels of HE. China is the largest country of origin for international students in the world (i.e., 622,100 international students). Both China and India are responsible for 30% of the pool of international students in OECD countries, and more than two-​thirds of this pool is concentrated in only five countries: Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (OECD, 2020, p. 231). The United States is the top destination for international students, holding 18% of the global education market share. English-​ speaking countries are the most attractive destinations overall (Institute of International Education [IIE], 2018), with the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada receiving more than 40% of internationally mobile students studying in OECD and partner nations (OECD, 2020). Although Anglophone countries host the great majority of all internationally mobile students, Asian countries, such as China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan, are experiencing faster growth among internationally mobile students. As of 2018, China has become the world’s third largest receiving destination with 492,185 international students (Cheng, 2021). East Asian worldwide student mobility consists of 23%, of which 36% choose to stay within the East Asian region, with China as the number-​one destination followed by Japan and South Korea (IIE, 2018). Student mobility is expected to continue to unfold in a multidirectional trend beyond the West through regional policy efforts, such as East Asia’s CAMPUS initiative and the East Africa Higher Education Area mobility initiative, which seek to bolster enrollment of international students through immigration and labor market policies (Cheng, 2021; IIE, 2018). Student mobility trends to and within Asia exemplify empirically how China, Japan, and South Korea are achieving proximity to Whiteness, through their recent internationalization efforts and/​or branding (e.g., English language instructions, international partnerships, recruitment, and/​or improvements in their global university rankings) (Shahjahan & Edwards, 2022). Considering Christian’s (2019) “Global Field of Whiteness,” academic flows toward these three countries, in particular, entrench Whiteness in Asia, instead of disrupting malleability of Whiteness as futurity. Students in the Global South “hoping” to access geopolitical centers to improve employment opportunities find future security particularly relevant (Foumunyam, 2017; Islam 2019; Winberg & Winberg, 2017). Preparing for one’s future value and desires to quell fear shape students seeking study abroad in White (and White-​ approaching) locations. Xiang and Shen (2009) highlight the urgency and anxiety

Mobilizing Whiteness   335 of students and families as tantamount to the risk of “missing the last bus” in their bid to acquire anticipated cultural and symbolic capital. Pursuing HE overseas became common in China even for those without much knowledge of international study destinations or financial capacity (Sidhu & Ishikawa, 2022, p. 406). Similar to the Chinese, Bangladeshi students and their parents invest in such study abroad to secure future market signals of intelligence (Islam, 2019). Additionally, Asian students invest in degrees from White nations because these degrees offer more mobility in their home countries (Chatterjee & Barber, 2021). Because Asian countries aspire to White prominence, they hire Asian students educated in White nations, which creates opportunities for social mobility (Chatterjee & Barber, 2021). To this end, some Bangladeshi students noted in Islam’s (2019) study that one faces cultural challenges in securing a job if one doesn’t have an overseas degree, and as mentioned in the previous section, “if you study from abroad, you like considered more smart or intelligent” (p. 5). Whiteness as investment situates mobility outside of Bangladesh and into global HE as a form of intelligence. Similarly, Kim (2016) noted that Koreans with US degrees are understood to have global capital, which separates them into elite categories over those who remained in Korea for their study. Koreans engage in mobility for the rewards (employment/​social) they receive when they come back to South Korea, producing social elite Asians. Since Whiteness is malleable, students also move to “within reach” (Ahmed, 2007, p. 152) non-​White locations to access geopolitical privilege tied to global economies. Increasingly elite Asian HE offers an affordable Whiteness, an affordable investment (Sidhu & Ishikawa, 2022, p. 410). Many students speak to the changing global order, shifts toward China, as a reason for why they study in China instead of the White Global North. For instance, some Southeast Asian students cited China’s emerging economic prowess as a reason to travel there instead of the Global North (Sidhu & Ishikawa, 2022). A student from Vietnam explained that prohibitive costs of studying in the Global North made China seem economically accessible (Sidhu & Ishikawa, 2022). Similarly, African students engage in mobility to China because of its rising global political power and foreign investments/​trades with African nations, which made China a foreign job creator in African nations (Mulvey, 2021). According to Mulvey (2021), “China’s relative position within the global political economy acts as a pull factor for African students, just as the West’s relative position to East Asia has” (p. 443). Furthermore, China’s recent One Belt, One Road (BRI) initiative is another example whereby students in Eurasia are drawn by Chinese scholarships and pour into China, reshaping regional education and affecting global HE (Peters, 2020). Others decided to move to peripheral players such as Sri Lanka because of the global presence of Korean multinational firms in the country (Sidhu & Ishikawa, 2022, p. 408), or even Pakistan/​India where Nepalese students have traveled previously but now experience a rise in antiethnic sentiments. While non-​White nations invest in the Global South, this “creates a demand for credentials in business, information technology, and competency in the respective language of the investor” (Mulvey 2021, p. 444). As Pfaff-​Czarnecka (2020) put it: “While engaging in positional competition, institutions as well as students have engaged in self modelling driven by Western

336    Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards standards of academic excellence” (p. 1408). Morphing core-​periphery relationships, evinced through varying degrees of Whiteness, shape student mobilities. Movement is not isolated to those in the Global South or students. Global North White subjects also move for different but related reasons. Since the desire for access to Whiteness and global subjectivity is not isolated to individuals, many elite institutions in the global periphery—​recognizing the relationship between Whiteness and aspiration—​invest in aggressively recruiting White faculty or faculty with White national credentials. Universities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and East Asia are recruiting large numbers of English-​speaking academics from the White world, both to their universities and to satellite campuses of White higher education institutions (HEIs) (Kim et al, 2021; Koshino, 2019; Tight, 2021). Institutional desire for proximity to Whiteness provides White faculty with privileged professional atmospheres. The experiences of White faculty in the periphery are telling. As one White woman faculty teaching at a Korean university said about her experience living in Korea, “I feel like I’m treated like a princess” (Kim et al. 2021, p. 10). White bodies experiencing privilege in global contexts highlight Whiteness’s malleability. For instance, Koshino (2019) noted in the Japanese HE context, “White instructors were routinely hired with lesser credentials than their Asian colleagues” (p. 54). As reflected in student examples, within such a context, Whiteness signals superior intellect, particularly when it comes to English-​speaking ability (Koshino, 2019). Malleable Whiteness allows White bodies to access local resources and valuable information to advance one’s social status. Given the dominance of Whiteness in knowledge production, through English, many faculty from White metropolitan centers can access non-​Western regions for academic work. For instance, Western faculty teaching in Turkey cite being able to teach in English as a motivation for going to Turkey (Seggie & Calikoglu, 2021). Such linguistic capital allows White faculty to “enjoy . . . high living standards,” allowing for more satisfaction (Seggie & Calikoglu, 2021, p. 10), and opportunities to consult (because Western knowledge is desirable by the wider society and networks). This same privilege was experienced by European faculty in Mexico (see Mendoza et al., 2019). Global asymmetries also impact temporary mobility investments. For example, academics from the Global North are hired or invited for research stays in the academic periphery because of their pedigree/​prestige. As Schopf (2020) noted, due to their know-​how on getting published in core journals and their (presumed) connections, Global North academics often find locals eager to work with them, doing translations and providing local knowledge. Thus, without having to invest time in studying the local language and culture, Global North academics can publish on Global South phenomena. Ultimately, periphery resources are used to benefit core academics. However, faculty from the Global South moving to the Global North struggle to be seen as experts. The malleability here is that the presence of a faculty from the academic core seemingly benefits the periphery locales; however, the greatest beneficiary is the academic core faculty whose work furthers the maintenance of Whiteness.

Mobilizing Whiteness   337 Given that White credentials travel easily around the world, well-​resourced Global North faculty also experience a privileged chronopolitical landscape. Since the global HE marketplace understands Global North faculty as leading scholars, employed by highly ranked universities, top conferences take place in their locations, saving them time from having to leave the academic core. Comparatively, those in the academic periphery trying to build their careers invest in frequent visits to the core for global conferences, spending time/​resources in a way that faculty in the academic core do not. Those in the academic core benefit from their time being already protected by notions of expertise, allowing for continued productivity standards set by the Global North. Further, faculty in the Global South endure humiliating visa processes/​delays which further infringe on their time and resources (Schöpf, 2020). Global North White faculty also possess the privilege to globe trot, not necessarily for job or economic survival, but rather to pursue their intellectual or cultural curiosities. For instance, in China, motivations of such faculty included intellectual curiosity, engaging in novel projects, and taking on leadership positions, as well as personal reasons such as feeling bored with the previous job or life and seeking adventure (Cai & Hall, 2016). In Japan, motivations for international faculty included academic or personal reasons (e.g., fondness for Japanese culture, family conditions, etc.) (Huang, 2017). In Kazakhstan, international faculty were attracted by the salary, sense of adventure, and research and institutional building opportunities (Lee & Kuzhabekova, 2017). However, as mentioned previously, Whiteness allows White bodies to avoid partaking in local socialization experiences. For instance, in Kim et al. (2021) study in South Korea, they noted that “Even though the interviewed participants confronted everyday difficulties related to language, most of them did not engage in learning Korean” (p. 11). Furthermore, “Due to the language difficulties and lack of support the university offers, however, nearly all interview participants (except those who are Korean descendants) did not attend department meetings or participate actively in local, institutional service” (p. 14). In short, when researchers from White regions move to non-​White regions, they are not expected to make the same investments in socialization preparation as their contra-​movement peers (Burford et al., 2021). These examples also reveal how emotions move with global aspirations. For Global South subjects, movement toward the White global core provides positive emotions. Conversely, while some Global North subjects enjoy elevated treatment in the periphery, for those who move to the Global South under less than elite conditions or move to “less White” peripheral locales, the experience elicits negative emotions such as “ ‘weird’, ‘backward’ . . . ‘stuckness’ or regression” (Burford et al. 2021, p. 733). For instance, scholars from White nations who moved to Southeast Asia to teach displayed the following affective responses: “for me I guess it’s pretty much all, all negatives in terms of uh, my academic development” (Burford et al., 2021, p. 738). Later the same faculty stated, I feel a bit ashamed to be working here. Whenever I send off a paper, I don’t really like the fact that it says . . . [South Asian institution] on the paper, that the first response

338    Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards to anyone looking at it is gonna . . . make them wary . . . Yeah. I mean I’m kind of ashamed to work here. . . . I did my PhD at [prestigious European institution], which was pretty famous, and then I do kind of think, how did I end up . . . what am I doing? (Burford et al., 2021, p. 739)

Relatedly, researchers who move from the Global North to the Global South describe feeling “underdeveloped” and lacking opportunities for “advancement” (Burford et al., 2021; Kim et al, 2021). Comments suggest that faculty experience movement away from the core, away from the aspiration as penalty. While movement to the Global South represents stuckness, aspiring to move to the White core for Global South subjects, conversely, elicits feelings of freedom. Charting the various movements of student and faculty bodies illuminates Whiteness as futurity. White aspirations, investments, and malleability shape mobilities. As such, Whiteness becomes the compass directing such movements.

Mobility of Resources Tied to the mobility of imaginaries and people is also mobility of resources, driven by Whiteness as futurity. Futurity informed by anticipatory logics (precaution or preparedness) intervenes in the present (Baldwin, 2012). As such, local subjects fearing the “yet to come” or hoping for better things to come (Baldwin, 2012) increasingly turn into global subjects by adopting a global White eye, through initiatives such as internationalization efforts, international branch campuses (IBCs), and education hubs. The mobility of resources oriented toward Whiteness is evident as many nations and institutions heavily invest in internationalization efforts to carve their place in the global market, hoping to attract future student consumers. Such investments include recruitment of academic stars, international collaboration efforts, and introducing more coursework in English. Such internationalization efforts range all the way in East Asia (i.e., China, Japan, and South Korea), South Asia (e.g., India), or Central Asia (Kazakhstan) to Mexico. In many locations to be global is to offer White canons of knowledge (e.g., English, liberal arts curriculum), or those perceived to have such knowledge (Shahjahan & Edwards, 2022). For instance, Japan’s education ministry has invested in the Top Global University Project as a way to invest in its internationalization and HE competitiveness (Morely et al., 2020; Rose & McKinley, 2017). Japan is using HE internationalization efforts to increase funding to their institutions from international student recruitment. Similarly, the Chinese government is largely fueling the internationalization efforts in China’s HE campuses via Ministry of Education funding and goals/​ assessment. Currently, Chinese universities compete with each other using English courses and offering curriculum in English to draw international students (Zha et al., 2019). Differently, in 2010, Kazakhstan, a peripheral HE nation, invested substantially in an international university by creating the Nazarbayev University (NU) as the flagship

Mobilizing Whiteness   339 university of the country. NU touts close partnerships with University of Wisconsin-​ Madison, Cambridge, and the National University of Singapore. Faculty members at NU are largely expatriates who come from approximately 40 different countries (Lee & Kuzhabekova, 2017). Finally, Indian government’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 seeks to promote internationalization in many different ways, including, to name a few, Indian HEIs offering internationally relevant curricula, global standards education at a relatively low cost, and permitting foreign universities to operate in India (Deb, 2020). In other words, academic mobility is racialized in that some parts of the world are trying to curb flow out of their national borders and draw more people in. Whiteness thus colonizes the aspirations and investments of HE stakeholders as all these actors aspire toward White norms, such as adopting English/​liberal arts coursework, recruitment of White bodies, and/​or international partnerships. Internationalization initiatives thus “orientates bodies [governments] in specific directions, affecting how they ‘take up’ space, and what they ‘can do’ ” (Ahmed, 2007, p. 149). Malleable Whiteness confers White bodies (i.e., institutions) with global privilege to be mobile around the world. As Ahmed (2007) reminds us, Whiteness informing a global arena can be discerned by the “repetition of the passing by of some bodies and not others” (p. 159). As we will demonstrate next, Whiteness shapes the mobility of material resources such as programs or institutions that cut across borders to deliver education and training. Cross-​border HE initiatives exemplify Whiteness as aspirations, investments, and malleability in global HE. Over 300 IBCs operate around the world (Cross-​Border Education Research Team [C-​BERT], 2020). While IBCs are mainly hosted in Asian countries, the home campuses themselves are situated predominantly in White regions. Approximately 74% of IBCs were administered from institutions based in White countries, with English-​speaking countries predominating (C-​BERT, 2020). Comparatively, China (14%), United Arab Emirates (11%), Singapore (5%), Malaysia (4.5%), and Qatar (3.6%) are the top five host countries for IBCs. The top two exporting countries—​the United States and the United Kingdom (the Whitest of Whiteness)—​ are the source for nearly 43% of the world’s total IBCs while only hosting 1.6% and 3% of the world’s international campuses respectively. France, Russia, and Australia round out the top five, exporting 38, 29, and 20 international campuses respectively. IBCs are located in host countries where English is not the official language. Most of the branch campuses situated in non-​White regions are mostly from Anglophone world, that is, the United States and United Kingdom (though it has somewhat changed recently), highlighting how IBCs represent Whiteness as aspirations with local flavors. In short, White HEIs can easily expand to nations on the periphery through IBCs, as the latter, given the barriers they face, seek to integrate their HE systems more fully into the global education community (Mackie, 2019), by investing in Whiteness and making Whiteness reachable through IBCs. IBCs help expand Whiteness’s outreach. For instance, White nations, such as Britain, invest in emerging major powers, such as China, through branch campuses to ensure future markets (Feng, 2013, p. 472). Furthermore, the UAE expanded its private HE options in the last decade with the American University of Sharjah (AUS), the American

340    Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards University of Dubai (AUD), the University of Wollongong, and more recently the opening of the Harvard-​affiliated Dubai School of Government and NYU Abu Dhabi (Vora, 2015, p. 22). Such IBCs help White HEIs and their partners to increase brand recognition, global rankings, and provide more cosmopolitan educational experiences for their students (Wilkins & Juusola, 2018; Vora, 2015). Through IBCs, Whiteness’s dominance into the future is protected, as White institutions provide global currency to locales. IBCs, indeed, are investments in Whiteness because IBCs require paying hefty set-​ up costs and consultation fees, and importing non-​native expert labor (as we discussed earlier). Governments such as China, Qatar, UAE, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Singapore invest in international branch campuses, while a local university or a city usually becomes the IBC sponsor (Deb, 2020; Feng, 2013; Lee & Kuzhabekova, 2017; Mackie, 2019; Seggie & Calikoglu, 2021; Vora, 2015). For instance, NYU Shanghai was set up in 2012 as a collaboration between NYU and East China Normal University, with funding from the city of Shanghai and the district of Pudong. Yale-​NUS, a liberal arts college, was set up through collaboration between Yale University and the National University of Singapore (Deb, 2020). Many new initiatives are taking place to erect branch campuses within domestic circles to help curb outward mobility. For instance, India’s recent Internationalization at Home policy, seeks to center foreign HE providers within the HE sector (Deb, 2020). Such non-​White regions seek to or have invested in Whiteness because they see the power of Whiteness to attract future student customers. Why do local subjects invest in IBCs? Tied to internationalization initiatives, IBCs offer non-​White actors seeking global aspirations the most convenient way to access and fulfill Whiteness aspirations in global HE. Non-​White subjects pursue Whiteness through IBCs as precautionary practices to help prepare for the global economy, such as remedying the increased demand for HE, or boost their own knowledge economies with a skilled labor force. As such, in the Middle East, IBCs are part of state incentives to diversify away from finite oil wealth into knowledge-​based economies (Vora, 2015). Many countries find it more attractive to host branch campuses of foreign public and private universities than to invest in the physical and human infrastructure needed for an expanded domestic HE sector (Knight, 2018). Furthermore, IBCs are seen as an entry point to quality education, English and other skills needed to be globally competitive, and national capacity building (Vora, 2015, 21). In short, Whiteness becomes the convenient means to remedy domestic issues, and as such, Whiteness becomes malleable and fits into such diverse contexts. Tied to mobility of resources is the recent resurgence of education hubs that help make Whiteness reachable, given its malleability. An education hub is a concerted effort by a country, zone, or city to assemble a critical mass of local and international actors to support its efforts to build the HE sector, expand the talent pool, or contribute to the knowledge economy (Knight, 2018; Lee, 2014, 2015). C-​BERT (2020) lists the following major global education hubs: United Arab Emirates (including Dubai Knowledge Park—​ Dubai International Academic City), Bahrain, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur Education City, Iskandar), Singapore (Global Schoolhouse), Qatar (Education City), Republic of

Mobilizing Whiteness   341 Panama (City of Knowledge), and South Korea (Jeju Global Education City). All these education hubs have opened up in non-​White regions, such as in the Arabian Gulf (UAE, Qatar), Africa (Botswana), and Asia (Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea) (Knight, 2018; Lee, 2014, 2015), which we would argue allows Whiteness to be reachable in geopolitical centers of the world. Furthermore, cities around the world are branding themselves as education or knowledge cities, such as Panama City, Bangalore in India, and Monterey in Mexico (Knight, 2018). For instance, over the last 10 or 15 years, Panama’s City of Knowledge—​an academic–​economic free zone located in the former Panama Canal Zone—​has undertaken several bold initiatives, including the establishment of a “Techno Park” that provides infrastructure and services to research and technology companies, houses many regional offices of international government organizations, and hosts foreign universities’ international programs and one branch campus (i.e., Florida State University) (Altbach & Svenson, 2019; Knight, 2018). Hence, education hubs become the new imperial frontiers of Whiteness, whereby non-​White actors partake in geopolitics of knowledge by mobilizing resources from elsewhere to establish knowledge centers privileging Whiteness. Education hubs help non-​White actors to create concentrated areas of Whiteness to be consumed, in terms of knowledge, institutions, and gateways to the global economy.

Concluding Remarks Our chapter highlights the complex interplay of race and racism informing globalization of HE, namely Whiteness. While we acknowledge that the geopolitical configurations of global HE are changing (e.g., Asia rising in global university rankings or mobility influxes), nevertheless we do not see Whiteness as futurity as something that can be quickly fixed. Such complexity also raises certain tensions in academic scholarship, namely tied to a modern onto-​epistemic grammar, such as providing alternatives, accounting for agency, and/​or future research directions. By deliberately engaging the superstructure, we forgo the comfort that analyses of progress provide and instead invite the reader to sit with the complexity of now. And while an analysis of global subjects’ agency can be a worthwhile scholarly endeavor, this is not our aim. Furthermore, agency doesn’t necessarily entail resistance or subversion, but more often than not, conformity to large cultural scripts (Flaherty, 2012), in our case, Whiteness. We also recognize how admonitions toward agency reinscribe Enlightenment values. While any deep analysis of race and racism invites complex intellectual projects, we will briefly share three directions. First, our analysis suggests examining the racialization process to go beyond national containers and examine the interplay between race and racism across scales, and their heterogeneous relations. For instance, it involves looking at the way subjects are jockeying for global positioning in a field of Whiteness (e.g., China’s Belt and Road initiative). Second, we need to critically examine “future-​facing”

342    Riyad A. Shahjahan and Kirsten T. Edwards policies and practices in HE to see how they reproduce Whiteness. As such, we would recommend drawing on Black radical thought and/​or anticolonial and antiracist social theory to imagine new analytics and methodologies for studying future-​facing policies and practices. We also need to understand globalization of HE from the question of social difference, and how such social difference acts as transnational forces. Finally, we can examine the question of resistance to Whiteness but understand how they can also be forms of complicity to Whiteness as malleable. Empirical researchers could examine their own Whiteness assumptions (e.g., deficit notions of the Other and/​or linear progress) as they research current HE practices and policies and so on. However, we need to be wary of critical intellectual endeavors as they are fraught with tensions and contradictions within academia. Ultimately, we need to change our relationship with the contents and frames themselves, tied to a modern onto-​epistemic grammar, in ways that they no longer define our existence or allocate our aspirations and investments. We need to move beyond changing our ways of knowing and embrace changing our ways of being (Shahjahan et al., 2017). The globalization of education field needs to challenge its own complicity in its underlying modern onto-​epistemic grammar (see Shahjahan, 2019; Stein, 2017), by not only unpacking the geo/​body politics of its own canonical thought but also when speaking of and using alternative and “Southern” perspectives. This amplification of possibilities requires, as Santos (2007) and Andreotti et al. (2018) state, an alternative way to think about and be with alternatives, in the field of globalization of education, that welcomes us first to the edge and then invites us beyond the abyss.

Notes 1. By subjects, we are referring to actors (individual or collective entities) who are not self-​ contained entities driving their own agency or sense of self, but embody agency in relation to larger discursive and material forces. In other words, a subject is a form of personhood that is made in relation to others. Consequently, subjectivity refers to a state of being, or a subject’s way of being that is fluid and relational, rather than something that is fixed or something one possesses (Nealon & Giroux, 2012). 2. By onto-​epistemic grammar, we mean a dominant set of rules or assumptions structuring ways of knowing/​being, derivative of coloniality/​modernity, that defines what is real, ideal, desirable, and knowable. Such a grammar entails anthropocentrism, rationality, naïve realism, logocentrism, linearity, and singular notions of progress (material accumulation, social mobility, economic growth, and/​or self-​determination) (see Shahjahan, 2019; Shahjahan et al., 2017; Stein, 2017). 3. It is beyond the scope of this chapter for us to provide a theoretical genealogy of our Whiteness as Futurity framework. However, briefly, our framework derives concepts/​vocabulary from various disciplines, and theoretical approaches ranging from more sociological structuralist accounts (such as world systems theory, decolonial thought, sociology of race studies, Black Marxism), to temporal accounts (concepts such as futurity and anticipation logics), and cultural studies accounts (from communication and media studies to feminist theories). As such, given the interdisciplinary root of our framework, we use a

Mobilizing Whiteness   343 variety of concepts in this chapter to highlight the manifestation of Whiteness as futurity, using terms such as subjectivity, imaginaries, fields, capital, and/​or bodies, to name a few, to illuminate the ways in which Whiteness informs globalization of HE.

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Section III Systems Theory, Globalization, and Education

chapter 16

Education i n a Fu nctiona l ly Dif ferentiate d Worl d So ciet y Raf Vanderstraeten

Introduction This chapter will provide a reflection on the function of education in world society. It will build upon a sociological line of reasoning for which labels such as functionalism and systems theory are often used. As any other important sociological tradition, functionalism and systems theory have in the past attracted much criticism. At the same time, much has also been accomplished within this line of sociological thinking. The aim of this chapter is to build upon the accomplishments and indicate ways in which the position and the function of education within society can be approached critically, both historically and contemporary. The following analyses and reflections particularly rely on the work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who, arguably, has made the most important contributions to sociological systems theory and related traditions in recent history. Our point of departure is an “un-​functional” account of education that Luhmann provided. On the one hand, Luhmann argued that modern society comprises a variety of function systems. He put education on his list of important function systems, next to several other systems: politics, law, the military, the economy, science, the family (and intimate relations), art, medicine, religion, and so on (Luhmann, 2017, pp. 793–​798). On the other hand, however, Luhmann also questioned whether this arrangement “worked” or “works.” Historically, he once argued, education expanded at a relatively late moment in history. It is only after the differentiation of function systems for politics, economics, religion, and, in part, also for science that the prospects for education began to change.

352   Raf Vanderstraeten With his typical irony, however, he also expressed his doubts about the “systemness” or functionality of this arrangement: “As with the completion of a puzzle, the pieces that have already been differentiated (from the others) have a suggestive influence on what can possibly and must necessarily be connected to them. But, unlike with a puzzle, it is not certain from the outset that a complete picture will be produced or that it will be understandable as a whole” (Luhmann & Schorr, 1988, p. 24). Perhaps it might be said that modern society imagines itself as a system—​well regulated, carefully planned, and responsibly engineered. But Luhmann did not think of systems as entities that (try to) control everything inside themselves. He rather used the notion of system as an epistemological device to look at the distinctions between systems and their environments. In this sense, his systems theory can be used to think against the “system,” to look at issues and questions, which typically fall outside the scope of the dominant framework in functionalist sociology. Luhmann’s contributions on the system of education, which were published in a period of about 20 years, from the mid-​1970s until the mid-​1990s, can also be understood from this point of view. These contributions draw attention to difference instead of unity, to “heterarchy” instead of hierarchy, to messiness instead of orderliness. They are here taken as a point of departure for analyses of both the rise of the education system in modern society and the position it has acquired in contemporary world society. Apart from an introduction and conclusion, this chapter consists of six steps. To outline the basic characteristics of a functionalist perspective on education, I hereafter first present an overview of Talcott Parsons’s classic (but also habitually rejected) functionalist perspective on society and its system of education. Next, I focus on some of the foundations of Luhmann’s theoretical framework, especially the distinction between system and environment. Afterward, I turn to analyses of the system of education. In historical perspective, I look both at the institutionalization of inclusion imperatives and the “upgrading” of the public (children, students) in the education system, and at the relatively low social status of teaching and the claims that teaching constitutes a “semi-​profession.” I then discuss the recent rapid growth of participation in higher education and the appropriateness of present-​day characterizations of world society as “schooled society” (e.g., Baker, 2014; Schofer et al., 2021). I conclude with more general reflections on the social function of education and also indicate how the rapid expansion of higher education changes the “puzzle” of world society.

System and Structure Talcott Parsons was a towering figure in the social sciences in the period after World War II. He explicitly built upon a variety of sources, including the works of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. But his frame of reference became itself also very influential; several concepts, including those of system, structure, and function, would not have the sociological currency they now possess without the distinctiveness of their employment

Functionally Differentiated World Society    353 by Parsons. It is therefore useful to start our reflection on the function of education in world society with a discussion of the ways in which Parsons conceived of functional differentiation and the societal function of education. To grasp the particularities of this frame of reference, it is important to note that Parsons defined his viewpoint as “analytical realism.” Already in his early work, he stressed that “facts” are never simply “observations,” but statements about experiences in the terms of a specific conceptual scheme that provides a meaningful ordering of these experiences (1937, p. 730).1 In Parsons’s own view, his task consisted in building conceptual schemes that researchers could reliably use. The frame of reference, which he tried to articulate, was in his view the most general framework of concepts or categories in terms of which empirical scientific work could “make sense.” It had to serve as a point of departure that was grounded in reality and that could be continuously tested against reality. For Parsons, this frame of reference could best be articulated in terms of systems theory. In the preface to The Social System, Parsons specified that this frame had to bring together “the main outlines of a conceptual scheme for the analysis of the structure and processes of social systems” (1951, p. vii). On this basis, Parsons aimed to develop a general systems theory applicable within all of the social and behavioral sciences. He considered his general analytic model suitable for the analysis of all types of social units, from small, primary groups to entire societies. Within this theoretical model, the idea of “system needs” played a central role. His theory detailed the needs that had to be met if a social system were to survive. In his later work, this model was identified by the acronym AGIL, from the first initial of each of the four basic needs. Parsons distinguished between the system needs of Adaptation (the problem of adapting to the environment and acquiring sufficient resources), Goal attainment (the problem of setting and implementing goals), Integration (the problem of maintaining solidarity or coordination among the subunits of the system), and Latency (the problem of creating, preserving, and transmitting the system’s distinctive culture and values). According to Parsons, all types of social systems had to satisfy these four basic needs. Complex systems, however, tend to differentiate along the lines of this frame; the functional imperatives (or “system needs”) generate the fault lines along which system differentiation occurs (e.g., Parsons & Platt, 1973). More details of this model of “system needs” can be found in his analyses of single subsystems. In Economy and Society, for example, which is the first of a series of publications devoted to major societal subsystems, the economy is defined as “a special type of social system. It is a functional sub-​system of the more inclusive society, differentiated from other sub-​systems by specialisation in the society’s adaptive function” (Parsons & Smelser, 1956, p. 306). As part of the larger society, its primary function is the solution of the adaptive problems of society (as opposed to the problems related to other “system needs”). At the same time, it has to be bound by other system needs. As a differentiated subsystem within the larger system, Parsons and Smelser added, “the economy, like any social system, exchanges inputs and outputs over its boundaries with its situation. The most important part of the situation for the economy consists of the other cognate functional sub-​systems of the same society and the institutionalised value

354   Raf Vanderstraeten system of the society” (1956, p. 307). Parsons’s model thus put stress on the compatibility of the different subsystems of society and the ways in which the interchanges between all units are regulated and controlled. As a social system, society was in the first place characterized by relatively stable internal structures and subunits. In later publications on other societal subsystems, including education, Parsons likewise tended to stress the function of the parts for the whole and the interchanges among the different parts of the system (e.g., Parsons & Platt, 1973). With regard to socialization and education, Parsons pointed, more particularly, to two types of social systems: families and schools. By and large, these two types of systems had to correspond with two phases in the entire process: primary socialization takes in this view place in the family, where newcomers learn in the first place the “particular” values of their family and community, while secondary socialization through the school should acquaint them more strongly with society’s “universalistic” value orientations (e.g., Parsons, 1959). Parsons did not expect stark tensions between both systems; he rather stated that the family and the school system “have similar functions” (Parsons & Bales, 1955, p. 399). In modern society, he also maintained, “the school class may be regarded as the focal socializing agency,” although “probably the most fundamental condition underlying this process is the sharing of common values by the two adult agencies involved—​the family and the school” (Parsons, 1959, p. 298, p. 309).2 The modern family had to be an important “support system” for the modern school organizations. Moreover, Parsons also used advances in the fulfilment of specific “system needs” to characterize the evolution of modern society. The American University, for example, which is the last monograph he saw into print, starts with the statement that the “development of modern society included three processes of revolutionary structural change: the Industrial Revolution, the Democratic Revolution, and the Educational Revolution” (Parsons & Platt, 1973, p. 1). Parsons here linked the transformation of modern society with successes at the level of different function systems—​first the economy (A), then the political system (G), and, finally, starting in the 20th century in the United States, the expansion of higher education and the value complex supported by it (L). “Compared to previous stages in the development of Western society, the educational revolution upgrades cultural interests relative to economic and political interests” (Parsons & Platt, 1973, p. 224). For Parsons, this development not only meant that “higher” system needs had been able to take the lead but also that the functional differentiation of society had been consolidated and its “systemness” improved. As already indicated, Parsons’s frame of reference triggered much resistance, especially during the “critical” 1960s and 1970s. His ideas of “systemness” were close to ideas of order, control, hierarchy, and regulated interchanges between the different subunits of society. His theory came to stand for an ideological commitment to the “system” (and especially to that of the American society of his time). It became a placeholder for the kind of perspective that was not to be pursued in the social sciences. In this “critical” era, his monograph on The American University did almost never receive serious attention (Vanderstraeten, 2014). Many of the references to this and other work of Parsons rather became ritualistic ones, intended to dismiss systems theory altogether. With Parsons’s work, the concept of system also fell into disrepute in the social sciences.

Functionally Differentiated World Society    355 It seems fair to say that the relative lack of response to the writings of Luhmann is an echo of the strong reactions against Parsons’s frame of reference as well as against some of the applied forms of “systems engineering” that took shape in this period. In the following sections, I will, however, try to illustrate why Niklas Luhmann had good reasons to return to systems theory and why it today may still make sense to recur to systems theory in analyses of education.

System and Loose Coupling To situate Luhmann’s approach, and distinguish it from the approaches of his predecessors, including Parsons, it is helpful to start with his view on the meaning and reality of (social) systems. Luhmann, who was in the 1960s a student of Parsons at Harvard University, took a stance to Parsons’s analytical realism. The oft-​cited first sentence of the first chapter of Luhmann’s Social Systems says: “The following considerations assume that there are systems” (1995, p. 12). But in the introduction to this monograph, Luhmann also maintained something slightly different. “Thus the statement ‘there are systems’ says only that there are objects of research that exhibit features justifying the use of the concept of system, just as, conversely, this concept serves to abstract facts that from this viewpoint can be compared with each other and with other kinds of facts within the perspective of same/​different” (1995, p. 2). The claim that systems exist relates to “objects of research,” but these objects come into view only when the claim is made, because the concept system gives one the means to make the systems visible. Rather than an exercise in analytical realism, Luhmann conceived of systems theory as a mode of second-​order observation, which had to undergo detailed empirical tests (Rasch, 2000, pp. 72–​73; Vanderstraeten, 2001; von Foerster, 1984). How did Luhmann describe the reality that emerges with the reality of systems? In a relatively early, programmatic article, which sketches the outlines of a theory of modern society, Luhmann started by stating that significant gains can be made by applying new paradigms of systems theory: “The most important contribution of systems theory has been a change in the conceptual framework in terms of which systems are conceived and analysed. General systems theory, as well as cybernetics, replaced the classical conceptual model of a whole that consists of parts and relations between parts by a model that focused on the difference between system and environment” (1977, p. 30). My intention (in this text), he added, “is to use the distinction of system and environment to work out a theory of system differentiation for the social system of the society” (1977, p. 30). For Luhmann, the concept of system presupposed the concept of environment and vice versa. He consequently did not use the notion of system as a methodological device to look at various manifestations of the “systemness” of modern society: structure and function, hierarchy and order, predictability and control. He was rather interested in forms of loose coupling, noise, and incomprehensibility. A very similar argument is presented in his late work. In Theory of Society, the last book publication he saw into print, Luhmann writes that he intends to understand

356   Raf Vanderstraeten society “as a system; and the form of the system . . . is nothing other than the distinction between system and environment” (2012, p. 40). In the chapter on the differentiation of society, he added: “System differentiation does not mean that the whole is divided into parts and, seen on this level, then consist only of the parts and the ‘relations’ between the parts. It is rather that every subsystem reconstructs the comprehensive system . . . through its own (subsystem-​specific) difference between system and environment” (2013, p. 3). In this version, systems theory does away with the traditional (Parsonian) connotations of the concept system. Society is not depicted as an organized social system, which possesses the qualities typically connected with “systemness.” Not surprisingly, Luhmann also frequently referred to the cybernetic idea that the whole is less (not more) than the sum of the different parts, and even that any part of the whole is more intelligent than the whole (see Wiener, 1948, p. 162). Luhmann thus did not depart from a catalogue of system needs, of functions that have to be fulfilled. Function systems crystallize around particular problems. Societal problems, such as the socialization of newcomers, may create opportunities for system formation, and function systems may therefore be defined by the historical conditions of their formation, but, as we will see, these systems may also develop their own dynamics and make their environments dependent on the ways they operate. In this sense, Luhmann also did not depict modern society as a tightly coupled, well-​organized system. Social integration depends in his perspective on the way in which the different subsystems are able to regulate their mutual relationships—​by developing both specific sensibilities and insensibilities toward their respective environments. Loosely coupled or decoupled systems might thus be dealt with as well-​integrated systems, while loose coupling minimizes the problems which the different function systems create for one another (e.g., Luhmann, 2013, pp. 87–​108). For Luhmann, functional differentiation gives precedence to horizontal or “heterarchical” relations. Social changes may hence elicit a variety of consequences in our functionally differentiated society. The introduction of compulsory school attendance in the course of the long 19th century, for example, was a different environmental problem for the economic system, the political system, the religious system, the families, and so on (Vanderstraeten, 2006). As we will see, the rapid expansion of higher education in more recent decades also brings about a range of unforeseen and unexpected consequences, both at the level of society and at that of other subsystems. To address these issues, we now turn to the differentiation of the system of education and the ways in which education has been able to establish itself as function system.

Differentiation and Inclusion Luhmann described modern society as functionally differentiated, but he abandoned Parsons’s analytical approach and the four-​function scheme (AGIL), to which it led, and instead relied on an inductive approach to analyze functional differentiation. Next to

Functionally Differentiated World Society    357 several other ones, education appeared on his list of function systems. But how did education constitute itself as a function system? What have been decisive “moments” in this process of system formation? And how does this system make a difference in our functionally differentiated world society? According to Luhmann, functional differentiation began quite early as a differentiation of social roles. “It gains momentum only when at least two distinct roles organise their complementary expectations around a specific function—​for example, clerics and laymen, politicians and the public, or teachers and pupils. This requires the emergence of special roles for receiving services” (1977, p. 35). Next to the emergence of specific professional roles, Luhmann focused attention on the formation of client or public roles, which are complementary to the professional roles. His focus was less on forms of specialization and professionalization as such, but rather on the consequences of the transformation of the client or public roles.3 Throughout his work on functional differentiation, he placed emphasis on the institutionalization of complementary roles or role expectations for the professionals and their public: roles for politicians and voters in the political system, for doctors and patients in the medical system, for priests and laypeople in the case of religion, and so on. Luhmann argued, in addition, that functional differentiation was dependent on the differentiation of the rules for inclusion and exclusion in the client or public roles in different function systems. “If the society introduces compulsory school education for everyone, if every person regardless of his being nobleman or commoner, being Christian, Jewish, or Moslem, being infant or adult, is subject to the same legal status, if ‘the public’ is provided with a political function as electorate, if every individual is acknowledged as choosing or not choosing a religious commitment; and if everybody can buy everything and pursue every occupation, given the necessary resources, then the whole system shifts in the direction of functional differentiation” (1977, p. 40; see also Luhmann, 2013, pp. 16–​27). From this point of view, Luhmann was thus interested in the social mechanisms used to regulate inclusion and participation in different function systems. His take on functional differentiation built upon the idea that different modes of inclusion (and exclusion) would allow these systems to elaborate their own eigenvalues—​often without coordination with other systems.4 For education, such opportunities emerged at a relatively late moment in history, viz. at a moment that social mobility and social complexity had already become high (Luhmann & Schorr, 1988, p. 24). In the 18th and 19th centuries, during which the ideal of “schooling for all” was strongly put forward (as the introduction of compulsory education at many places in the world illustrates), education acquired a new meaning. This “redescription” is probably best known under the title of the invention or discovery of the child (Ariès, 1960). This redescription refers to a social construction process at the completion of which the child is no longer viewed as an incomplete adult who lives in the same world as adults do, who grows into this world and who therefore can be educated (i.e., completed) by adults, but who does not necessarily need education in order to become a human. Instead, the child is held to be a particular type of human being who lives in a particular type of world, who is naturally responsive to education (e.g.,

358   Raf Vanderstraeten by being curious and sensitive), but who also makes education particularly difficult because it lacks good reason and is at the mercy of its own whims and weaknesses. The inclusion of the whole population into the process of education thus became explainable and justifiable, as everyone comes into the world being helpless and everybody is somehow—​the question is: how well?—​educated by one’s environment. In theoretical terms, the requirement of inclusion allowed for the rise of a generalized conception of the public, viz. a conception that abstracts from the (given) rank characteristics of the family to which the pupils belong, whereas the functional setting and orientation of school organizations allowed for a respecification of this “generalized other.” As Luhmann suggested, the education system gradually became able to develop its own distinctions to observe and treat its public. By incorporating and articulating notions, such as “merit,” “talent,” or “IQ,” for example, it increasingly secured its own space for meaningful educational action and decision-​making. Such notions were able to fuel the expansion of a broad range of organizational arrangements (see Luhmann, 2002, pp. 111–​141; Stichweh, 2016).5 In this sense, the inclusion regulations also made it possible to underline the need for an appropriate and stimulating educational milieu, for the professionalization of teaching. These structural changes point to the central importance of school organizations in the system of education. The differentiation of education is fueled by the expansion of school education—​and has modified the role expectations with regard to parents and parenting within family contexts. Teachers are currently not just acting in loco parentis. Consider, for example, the wide-​ranging impact on the family of the temporal organization of the school day and the school year. Consider the impact of homework or (re)marks on report cards. Or consider possible confrontations between the “natural” authority of parents and the “professional” authority of teachers, for example, during parent-​teacher consultations in primary and secondary schools. Many other examples can be added (see Tyrell & Vanderstraeten, 2007; Vanderstraeten, 2007). Various processes of “schooling the family” have been triggered by the expansion of school education. While, for Parsons, the family and the school system had to fulfil similar functions for society at large, Luhmann’s approach clearly points to the internal differentiation of, and the ensuing tensions within, the education system. The particularities of this system seem more and more defined by school organizations and the kinds of expectations and realities created by these organizations (Vanderstraeten, 2002, 2021).

Differentiation and Professionalism The organization setting also defines professionalization processes in the education system. School teachers are the main actors in this professionalization process—​not parents and family education. This focus on teaching and its professionalization has to do with the fact that (almost) everyone can become parent, but that entry into school teaching can be regulated and controlled. Educational credentials are required of anyone

Functionally Differentiated World Society    359 who teaches in schools. It should be added, however, that it is often also doubted that teaching possesses the features of a full-​fledged profession. Discussions about the social status or prestige of teaching also show that professionalism in teaching is perceived as a desideratum, as something that needs to be accomplished. Compared with doctors or lawyers, for example, teaching is time and again described as a “semi-​profession” (e.g., Ingersoll & Collins, 2018; Lortie, 1969, 1975). It is useful to reflect upon this condition, as critical appraisals of teaching often go along with negative assessments of the position of education in society. In line with much other sociological literature, Luhmann saw the professions as a specific, distinctive group of occupations (Luhmann & Schorr, 1976). They specialize in “people work.” They deal with personal problems and risks: health or sickness (medicine), dispute resolution and law-​based social order (law), consolation and salvation (religion). As education can also be defined as a form of people work, the status of its practitioners can be compared with that of other professionals. It should be added that the professions do not simply find their work laid out for them. They rather “co-​construct” the problems they deal with in their daily work. As the social psychologist Karl E. Weick argued, for example, physicians “often implant maladies that weren’t there when the examination began. Their procedures consolidate numerous free-​floating symptoms into the felt presence of a single, more specific, more serious problem” (1979, p. 153). Physicians and other professionals specify “vague” problems as tasks for which they can (and have to) assume responsibility. They make “something” of their clients’ problems; they transform these problems into “manageable” tasks and “bearable” obligations, such as the obligation to do what “reasonably” can be done. The professions thus also redefine the boundaries of their territory (Abbott, 1988; Dingwall, 2017). Seen in this light, several problems connected with people work in education are quite unlike those other professionals are accustomed to. Perhaps most obvious is the fact that most clients are minors. They are not perceived as clients who seek professional help for their personal problems; they are rather perceived as immature people in need of guidance and control. The social prestige of teachers is probably negatively affected by the low social status of children. Moreover, students mostly exercise no choice about attending school until the age of 16 or 18 and have practically no say about what teacher they will have. They are legally required to attend school; they must be taught by whatever staff member is assigned by the school officials (Dreeben, 1970; Woods, 1990). The obligatory nature of the arrangement means that the students’ interest (or lack thereof) plays no part in their disposition: any class will include at least some students who would rather be elsewhere. At the same time, there is considerable compulsion on the other side of the relation, too. Teachers have no formal right to choose or select their students. This arrangement might give teachers a sense of security. Lack of success in their work does not have to result in unemployment or loss of income; poor teachers normally have as many students as good teachers. Under these conditions, however, one also cannot count on the kind of commitment, which can be expected when partners voluntary engage in a (professional) relation.

360   Raf Vanderstraeten It can be added that the need for education almost never becomes as urgent as the need for other forms of professional help: in the case of illnesses and injuries, conflicts and controversies, spiritual anguish and remorse. Teachers normally are not confronted with acute needs or risks; they cannot presume that they work with clients who “really” need their services. “ ‘No one ever died of a split infinitive’ is a quip which throws the less-​than-​vital nature of teaching knowledge into relief ” (Lortie, 1969, p. 24). People rather “need” education to the extent that school results determine future career paths. When what has been reached is a necessary condition for going further, pressure to perform well will be put on the starting phase of the career—​especially during the early years in schools and at universities. Youngsters are pushed to take control of what is yet to come through what has already been achieved; for example, improving their chances at taking A-​levels by choosing “good” schools, or improving their chances on the labor market by obtaining “good” credentials from “good” institutions at an early point in their career. One might thus conclude that schools produce their own personal problems or crises to motivate their clients: decision moments, like tests and examinations, with consequences for later career transitions. Schools use these crises to motivate students to cooperate and work hard. But the “people work” in school organizations also creates opportunities for professionalization processes. It leads to the need to recruit well-​trained teachers, viz. professionals able to handle the demands of people work (Vanderstraeten, 2007; see also Wermke & Salokangas, 2021). Altogether, however, the profession remains tied to the organization—​and the social position and prestige of professional work in the education system might therefore be somewhat vulnerable. One might also conclude that the position or status of this system within our contemporary world society is likely to benefit more from an “upgrading” of the role of students, of the inclusion of large publics.

Schooled World Society? Using a term coined by Lewis Coser (1974), schools can be described as “greedy institutions,” while they seem able to extend their grasp on other institutions (Baker, 2014). In line with Luhmann’s take on functional differentiation, it might be added that the system of education has become able to export its standards to its social environment. A broad variety of role structures are now coupled with educational outputs and credentials. Because, more particularly, people’s career planning has come to rely heavily on education, participation in (higher) education has expanded rapidly and in unprecedented ways. Although school careers certainly do not neatly link up with occupational careers, dominant social structures now stimulate individuals to “go for it” (Labraña & Vanderstraeten, 2020; Vanderstraeten, 1999; Vanderstraeten & Van der Gucht, 2023). A clear indication of this shift is the fact that expenses for education are now commonly perceived as investments in human capital. From an economic perspective, the

Functionally Differentiated World Society    361 “impact” of educational credentials and degrees on the labor market is nowadays unquestionable. Although it can be questioned what students really learn at school, there is little doubt that the labor market has become increasingly organized around educational credentials and that educational credentials now constitute formal requirements for entry into a broad range of occupations (Bills, 2004; Caplan, 2018). Relevant, too, is the fact that the distinction between high-​and low-​schooled individuals has acquired special importance. Early school leaving has become a “social problem” precisely at the time when school participation was on the ascent. At the moment when it became more or less self-​evident to participate in higher education, it also became problematic not to finish school and graduate. In this sense, the “school dropout” became the inverse of the university graduate (Dorn, 1996).6 This dropout problem is another indication of the growing social belief in education and educational credentials. Early school dropout has increasingly become a social issue—​and not just an educational one. Individuals who fail to meet the rising educational expectations have come to face severe disadvantages in different social settings, perhaps first of all when they apply for jobs. Formulated somewhat differently: the increasing expectations with regard to “full” inclusion in secondary and higher education have brought about new exclusion problems. The distinction between the high-​and the low-​schooled nowadays gains relevance in socio-​geographical regard. The shifting expectations regarding education are leading to new forms of geographical segregation and clustering at both ends of the human capital distribution. On the one hand, social and economic geographers now point to the geographically uneven rise of the so-​called knowledge economy. It is the “skilled city,” which currently flourishes (e.g., Glaeser & Saiz, 2004; Moretti, 2013). The geographical clustering of university graduates has increased markedly; “hubs” or “hot spots,” characterized by high concentrations of university graduates, are emerging at the global level. On the other hand, additional analyses also point to the geographical segregation of early school leavers or school dropouts (Vanderstraeten & Van der Gucht, 2023). Geographical segregation and clustering now thus appear at both ends of the human capital distribution. And just as some places and local labor markets have become attractive because of the presence of many high-​schooled individuals, other labor markets suffer from the presence of comparatively high shares of “unschooled” individuals. Geographical inequality and educational inequality can now be used as indices of social inequality.7 As the preceding comments suggest, participation in education has thus become “a difference which makes a difference” (to use Gregory Bateson’s famous dictum). But is it useful to return to the idea of “the educational revolution” and characterize our world society as a “schooled society” (Baker, 2014; Parsons & Platt, 1973)? For sure, never before have so many individuals dedicated so much time, energy, and resources to becoming educated. In just a few generations, school education has, moreover, changed from a special experience for the few into an ordinary one for almost all. At the same time, however, many distinctions produced in the education system remain socially irrelevant, or only gain relevance under conditions that cannot be controlled by the

362   Raf Vanderstraeten education system itself. The economic value of education, for example, depends very much on specific forms of production and their organization. In other function systems, other distinctions are used to make sense of the world. We are familiar with definitions of society, which highlight the (un-​)importance of particular function systems, including “secular society” (religion), “capitalist society” (economy), “democratic society” (politics), and “knowledge society” (science). In various ways, all major function systems leave their mark on world society. Education can now surely be added to this list. Seen from this perspective, however, it also seems clear that educational distinctions have not come to replace or overwrite most other social distinctions. Whether we like it or not, our functionally differentiated world society remains a loosely integrated social system (Luhmann, 2012, 2013).

Conclusion We started this chapter with a brief overview of Parsons’s analyses of “system needs” in relation to social differentiation. Parsons built various models of the system of modern societies—​with a clear focus on internal aspects of the system: structure and function, hierarchy and control, integration and order. He imagined modern society as a (particular kind of) system—​well regulated, carefully planned, and responsibly engineered. The resistance to Parsons’s work in much of the sociological literature is certainly part of a broader reaction to these underlying ideas. In the latter decades of the 20th century, it became commonplace to argue that social systems theory was favored by scholars and decision-​makers, who shared a belief in the “system.” Despite such a critical climate, Luhmann continued to work within this sociological tradition. But he also distanced himself from Parsons’s work and explicitly tried to overcome some of the difficulties associated with Parsons’s approach (Vanderstraeten, 2022). Altogether, Luhmann put less emphasis on “systemness,” but instead directed attention to the distinction between system and environment and the autonomy of the function systems in the system of modern society. Building upon Luhmann’s approach, we have discussed three different aspects of the differentiation of the education system: inclusion imperatives, professionalization problems, and the rapid global expansion of higher education. As a consequence of the introduction of mandatory schooling and the expansion of school education, people have become able to experience the effects of education in two ways: (Almost) everyone is raised and educated in schools, and (almost) everyone can assume in their contacts with everyone else, that they, too, were raised and educated in schools. Most people are now not only themselves for several years of their life included in school education, but they have also become “consumers” of educational “outputs” (Luhmann & Schorr, 1988, p. 28). They are thus in the position to choose social contacts on the basis of educationally defined (and certified) bits of knowledge, which they can assume to be acquired by themselves and by the others.

Functionally Differentiated World Society    363 Education “functions,” one might say, when it includes large populations. It “functions,” when it creates a basis for the expectations and actions of others, when people are able to assume that others, with whom they may engage, are educated, too. It now also makes sense to direct attention to specific types of “output”: not just (well) educated individuals, but individuals with particular qualifications. Educational credentials and degrees may make it easier to meet “on common ground,” while they provide individuals with “signposts” of the kinds of knowledge, skills, and expertise that people possess.8 In this sense, the differentiation of the education system has transformed the foundations of the functionally differentiated world society in which we now live. The rapid expansion of participation in higher education in recent decades has once more changed the social position and relevance of education. Following this expansion, forms of socio-​geographical segregation have emerged. In recent decades, people are increasingly choosing social contacts on the basis of educational background and degree. They apparently seek the company of like-​minded and like-​educated others; they cluster together in rapidly changing and expanding “smart cities.” Less-​schooled people now also increasingly find themselves in each other’s company. Birds of a feather indeed flock together (Vanderstraeten & Van der Gucht, 2023). The way education functions in our contemporary society may thus also be criticized. While the education system has been successful in hypostatizing its own “system need,” the question indeed is whether this expansion process is “functional” for our contemporary world society at large.

Notes 1. One can here see the roots of Parsons’s approach in a neo-​Kantian (and Weberian) vision of the ideal type, which is a purposively fictitious construction for the analysis of an infinite array of “facts.” In Parsons’s words: “in terms of the given conceptual scheme there is no such thing as action except as effort to conform with norms just as there is no such thing as motion except as change of location in space” (1937, p. 77). 2. Such expectations also feature in a number of “Parsonian” studies, which deal in more detail with the relation between the family and the school. Robert Dreeben, for example, sketched in On What Is Learned in School (1968) the unique role of the school in preparing children for adulthood. What children learn in school, via both the official and the hidden curriculum, serves in this perspective as a bridge from the limitations of family-​centered behavior to the behavior of adults in society. Even the limitations and “uneducational” effects of schools, such as those that follow from the fact that “student crowds” limit the activities that can be pursued in classrooms and the roles that teachers can assume (sergeant, gatekeeper, privilege granter, participation signaler, etc.), do still seem to fulfil a function for modern society. With hindsight, it is not difficult to see that an altogether optimistic view on school education dominated in the 1950s and 1960s. 3. Typically, however, functionalist approaches direct attention to such forms of specialization. Neil Smelser, for example, who was a student and a close collaborator of Parsons, linked in his analyses of the genesis of “working-​class education” in Great Britain increasing functional autonomy with increasing specialization at the level of organizations (schools) and roles (teachers, inspectors, curriculum developers) (Smelser, 1991).

364   Raf Vanderstraeten 4. The term “eigenvalue” is derived from the German word Eigenwert, that is, intrinsic value. By referring to the eigenvalue of function systems, one does not put emphasis on the function that these systems fulfil for society, but on the ways in which they define and sacralize their own raison d’être. Related terms, such as “closure” and “self-​reference” (or “autopoiesis”), similarly point to the fact that Luhmann rejects expectations that systems might make specific “functional” contributions to some greater good as naïve (von Foerster, 1984). 5. In some of his later work, Luhmann also focused on the binary codes that divide the world into two values (e.g., true/​false, legal/​illegal, have/​have-​not), and their connection with functional specification. The most important function systems attain wide-​ranging relevance, he argued, “because they are specialised according to the operations of a determinate code” (1989, p. 39). These codes enable systems to institute their own procedures for channeling information, for creating differences through differences. Each system can develop its own criteria to define what is relevant—​and thus safeguard its autonomy (Vanderstraeten, 2004). 6. Dropping out came onto the public scene in the latter part of the 20th century, exactly at the time when school participation was on the ascent. It thus became a problem at precisely the time when the number of people dropping out of school was declining sharply. In other words, dropping out is not really a problem of numbers; it is an identification of deviant behavior, of not living up to the changing norms. The perceived problem is a consequence of the growing pressure to finish school and graduate. 7. It should also be seen that these forms of sociogeographical segregation, like other forms of segregation, tend to reinforce themselves. Parents who live in the same neighborhood often send their children to the same schools, while people who live at different places may diverge in the ways they are inclined to stimulate their own children (or those from family members or neighbors) to invest in education. 8. A comment might be added: Whether these social signposts do or do not reflect “real” psychic or bodily competences is not the issue; it suffices that they “function” within society. Bourdieu similarly speaks of illusio, that is, the belief that the fictions we create constitute reality (e.g., Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 98).

References Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. University of Chicago Press. Ariès, P. (1960). L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime. Plon. Baker, D. P. (2014). The schooled society: The educational transformation of global culture. Stanford University Press. Bills, D. B. (2004). The sociology of education and work. Blackwell. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Polity. Caplan, B. (2018). The case against education: Why the education system is a waste of time and money. Princeton University Press. Coser, L. A. (1974). Greedy institutions: Patterns of undivided commitment. Free Press. Dingwall, R. (2017). Essays on professions. Routledge. Dorn, S. (1996). Creating the dropout: An institutional and social history of school failure. Praeger.

Functionally Differentiated World Society    365 Dreeben, R. (1968). On what is learned in school. Addison-​Wesley. Dreeben, R. (1970). The nature of teaching: Schools and the work of teachers. Scott Foresman. Glaeser, E. L., & Saiz, A. (2004). The rise of the skilled city. Brookings-​Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 5, 47–​94. Ingersoll, R. M., & Collins, G. J. (2018). The status of teaching as a profession. In J. Ballantine, J. Spade, & J. Stuber (Eds.), Schools and society: A sociological approach to education (6th ed., pp. 199–​213). Sage. Labraña, J., & Vanderstraeten, R. (2020). Functional differentiation and university expansion in Chile. Social and Education History, 9(3), 252–​277. Lortie, D. (1969). The balance of control and autonomy in elementary school teaching. In A. Etzioni (Ed.), The semi-​professions and their organizations: Teachers, nurses and social workers (pp. 1–​53). Free Press. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. University of Chicago Press. Luhmann, N. (1977). Differentiation of society. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 2(1), 29–​53. Luhmann, N. (1989). Ecological communication. Polity Press. Luhmann, N. (1995). Social systems. Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2002). Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (2012). Theory of society, Vol 1. Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2013). Theory of society, Vol 2. Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2017). Systemtheorie der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N., & Schorr, K. E. (1976). Ausbildung für Professionen—​Überlegungen zum Curriculum für Lehrerausbildung. In H. D. Haller & D. Lenzen (Eds.), Jahrbuch für Erziehungswissenschaft (pp. 247–​277). Klett. Luhmann, N., & Schorr, K. E. (1988). Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem. Suhrkamp. Moretti, E. (2013). The new geography of jobs. Mariner Books. Parsons, T. (1937/​1968). The structure of social action. Free Press. Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. Free Press. Parsons, T. (1959). The school class as a social system: Some of its functions in American society. Harvard Educational Review, 29, 297–​318. Parsons, T., & Bales, R. F. (1955). Family, socialization and interaction process. Free Press. Parsons, T., & Platt, G. M. (1973). The American university. Harvard University Press. Parsons, T., & Smelser, N. J. (1956). Economy and society. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Rasch, W. (2000). Niklas Luhmann’s modernity: The paradoxes of differentiation. Stanford University Press. Schofer, E., Ramirez, F. O., & Meyer, J. W. (2021). The societal consequences of higher education. Sociology of Education, 94(1), 1–​19. Smelser, N. J. (1991). Social paralysis and social change: British working-​class education in the nineteenth century. University of California Press. Stichweh, R. (2016). Inklusion und Exklusion: Studien zur Gesellschaftstheorie. Transcript. Tyrell, H. & Vanderstraeten, R. (2007). Familie und Schule: zwei Orte der Erziehung. In J. Aderhold & O. Kranz (Eds.), Intention und Funktion: Probleme der Vermittlung psychischer und sozialer Systeme (pp. 159–​174). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Vanderstraeten, R. (1999). Educational expansion in Belgium: A sociological analysis using systems theory. Journal of Education Policy, 14(5), 507–​522. Vanderstraeten, R. (2001). Observing systems: A cybernetic perspective on system/​environment relations. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 31(3), 297–​311.

366   Raf Vanderstraeten Vanderstraeten, R. (2002). The autopoiesis of educational organizations: The impact of the organizational setting on educational interaction. Systems Research & Behavioral Science, 19(3), 243–​253. Vanderstraeten, R. (2004). The social differentiation of the educational system. Sociology, 38(2), 255–​272. Vanderstraeten, R. (2006). The historical triangulation of education, politics and economy. Sociology, 40(1), 125–​142. Vanderstraeten, R. (2007). Professions in organizations, professional work in education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(5), 621–​635. Vanderstraeten, R. (2015). The making of Parsons’s “The American University.” Minerva, 53(4), 307–​325. Vanderstraeten, R. (2021). How does education function? European Educational Research Journal, 20(6), 729–​739. Vanderstraeten, R. (2022). Niklas Luhmann and Talcott Parsons. In J. Trevino & H. Staubmann (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of Talcott Parsons studies (pp. 271–​280). Routledge. Vanderstraeten, R., & Van der Gucht, F. (2023). Educational expansion and socio-​geographical inequality (Belgium, 1961–​2011). Paedagogica Historica, 59(3), 466–497. von Foerster, H. (1984). Observing systems. Intersystems. Weick, K. E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing. Addison-​Wesley. Wermke, W., & Salokangas, M. (2021). Teacher autonomy unpacked and compared: Swedish, Finnish, German and Irish teachers’ perceptions of decision-​making and control. Palgrave Macmillan. Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and the machine. John Wiley. Woods, P. (1990). The happiest days? How pupils cope with school. Falmer.

chapter 17

Edu cation Reform as a Gl obal Phenome non Giancarlo Corsi

Introduction Nowadays reforms and innovations are considered indispensable and are on the agenda of any subsystem of modern society globally. The education system, in particular, stands out in proposing continuous reforms to improve schools and universities, even though the experience of recent decades no longer justifies such insistence. This chapter is not intended to give suggestions or recipes on the “best” way to plan and implement reforms. Instead, by following the approach of systems theory, we will try to understand what the socio-​structural conditions are that have led to this centrality of reforms in the educational system. A framework will therefore be offered to analyze the spread of reforms on a global scale in modern society and in particular in education. To this end, the first section seeks to expose the origins and development of the idea of reform, from the ancient meaning of condemning the corruption of creation to the modern one of planned change of social structures. This development is linked to the modernisation process, in particular to the centrality that the future assumes, compared to traditional societies oriented to the past. The second section highlights the key features of reforms from a systems theoretical point of view. These include the central importance of formal organizations, the only type of social system that can be reformed, the peculiar way in which the objectives of reforms are defined, and the difficulties in evaluating their effects. Moving on to a more abstract theoretical level, the relationship between intentional changes due to reforms and changes due to the evolution of society—​therefore unintentional—​will be analyzed, focusing in particular on the education system and its peculiarities with respect to other societal subsystems. In conclusion, some theoretical questions will be raised that contemporary research leaves open.

368   Giancarlo Corsi

Reforms in Ancient Tradition In ancient tradition and almost up to the early modern period, the word reform meant the opposite of what it means today. As suggested by the iterative prefix “re,” reformatio meant an intervention aimed at restoring a state that had been lost or corrupted over time.1 The distinction that defined the concept of reform was the distinction between reformatio and deformatio. The significance of this distinction derives from how time was conceptualized throughout this long historical period. Time was the time of creation, against the backdrop of divine eternity (tempus/​aeternitas). Because of this, the past was the reference point for the present: Exposed to corruption and deformation, creation had gradually drifted away from perfection since the dawn of time. This gave rise to the idea that reforming meant restoring—​as far as possible—​a better state than the present one. The various reform movements active not only in the ecclesiastical arena but also among guilds aimed not at a clean break with the past, but at reforming something that had been lost, at correcting errors and at protecting whatever was endangered by human imperfection and by the unpredictability of the future. When the Church spoke of itself as something that must be capable of renewal, it always meant knowing how to understand the Christian message in a richer and clearer manner. For this reason: nihil innovetur, nisi quod traditum est.2 For its part, the future was not yet the future of plans, projects, and decisions, but was instead an outlook based on “fortune” and randomness, which could only be counteracted by virtue and the innate qualities of the high-​born. Therefore, the present, including the intentions of its actors, was legitimized by the past. Things changed with the approach of modernity and in particular with the invention of printing, which made it unnecessary not only to copy texts but also to repeat them, often mnemonically (Eisenstein, 1979, p. 66). “Instead of repeating reading, it seemed more useful to compare different, now easily accessible texts. Texts now had to be ‘interesting’ ” (Luhmann, 2012, p. 175). The purpose of comparison is in fact to open up possibilities to modify the available knowledge without having to worry about protecting old knowledge from being forgotten or destroyed. The constraints of the past (customs, traditions, dogmas, mores, and so on) were progressively loosened and the future gradually became the time horizon of reference, to which semantics also had to adapt. This also happened with words such as reform and innovation (cf. Slack, 1999). Here reference to Luther’s Reformation, the historical case par excellence, is unavoidable. Printing was fundamental to the spread of Luther’s ideas, as historiography has confirmed.3 Luther had written his Theses basing himself on the traditional idea of reform and continuing a custom in theological studies, that of dispute in the interpretation of Scripture. The novelty of the Reformation is, therefore, independent of Luther’s intentions: it was the printing press that forced hierarchies—​and Luther himself—​to

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    369 confront what we might call the first signs of an active and demanding public sphere. The question we must ask ourselves, however, is, What becomes of the concept of reform in such a situation? Is it still about the need to correct deformations, to renew what has been handed down since the dawn of time, or are we already looking at a notion of reform that refers to radical change, to a break with the past? However this question is answered, it is not too early to see the first cracks in the ancient meaning of the term in this historical case. It would take a long time for a future-​ oriented approach (meaning planning and programming based on decision-​making processes) to become definitive. It was, in fact, the 18th century that completed this process and understood the concept of reform as change that sought not to restore the past, but to establish something new.4 Legitimization of action, previously provided by the past, is now sought in the future: no longer in tradition, but in the goals that the reforms set themselves.

Reform as a Generalized Global Phenomenon With modernity, a society was established that, thanks also to means of mass communication, became a world society, a globalized society (Luhmann, 2012, p. 83ff.; Luhmann, 2013, p. 127ff.). This involved, among other things, the rapid spread of innovation, resulting in highly accentuated interest in planned change. Terms such as progress, revolution, innovation, and reform entered the standard lexicon of the mass media and of every form of reflection and analysis. Thanks also to the development of technology, the impression that everything can be constantly improved through innovation and, therefore, that there are no limits to change became established and has dominated the global societal imagination up to the present. But there was also another protagonist that became a center of attention for reformists and revolutionaries: formal organizations, which took the place of traditional corporations and spread rapidly throughout all subsystems of society, again on a global scale. Unlike corporations, organizations base work on the motivation of workers and no longer on their social origin. They also differentiate roles by orienting themselves to skills and decisional programs and can freely set purposes, without any teleology defined on the level of society as a whole. The rise of organizations is therefore correlated with the openness to the future that characterizes modernity. Only through them, in fact, is it possible to manage the enormous potential generated by this openness, reducing complexity to a format suitable for decision-​making processes. Businesses, courts, universities, religious denominations, museums and galleries, hospitals, information networks, sports associations, schools—​organizations are everywhere and all of them focus on innovation and reform, each in their own way. As we will see in detail, the role of organizations is central for several reasons: It is no coincidence

370   Giancarlo Corsi that the first discipline to take an interest in reform as a generalized ambition was organizational studies.5 What caught the attention of these researchers was first and foremost the ubiquity of reform. There is no subsystem of society or type of organization that does not consider itself as an object of possible reform. Education is undoubtedly a special case, but we should also consider the centrality of the concept of innovation (in technology, processes, etc.) for businesses, the continually reasserted need to reform public administration or the many work organization models that guide the management of any organization. Moreover, for decades now, the aims of organizational reforms have tended to become confused with broader aims that seek to improve society as a whole, as in the case of issues related not only to caring for the environment and reducing pollution but also to gender, ethnic minorities, and corporate social responsibility, which are very fashionable today (see Brunsson, 2009, p. 4), and certainly also to issues of equality, dissemination of knowledge, and the ability to apply it, issues particularly cherished by the educational system. Furthermore, this widespread and pervasive tendency is based on the assumption that reform is something positive and that it can be achieved, especially if rational criteria are followed that ensure consistency between ideal principles, aims, and the means available6: “the guiding principle [of reforms] is that preferences are superior to alternatives and consequences. Preferences determine which consequences are relevant, and how they are assessed”; but this is already a problem, “because it requires that decision-​ makers evaluate the future about which, as we know, the only thing we can know for certain is that we know nothing” (Brunsson & Olsen, 1993, p. 65). The role of time, that is, the relationship between past and future, is also central to systems theory, as we shall see. This is a particularly complex issue, which is not limited to the unpredictability of the future. Indeed, many disciplines emphasize the fact that this uncertainty is actually the precondition that makes it possible, indeed necessary, to decide.7 However, the manner in which the past is processed is also important for reform. One of the most frequently cited topics in Brunsson and Olsen’s book concerns the past: “reforms are facilitated not by learning but by forgetfulness, by mechanisms that cause the organization to forget previous reforms or at least those of a similar content. Reformers need a high degree of forgetfulness to avoid uncertainty as to whether their proposed reform is a good one . . . Forgetfulness ensures that experience will not interfere with reform: it prevents the past from disturbing the future” (Brunsson & Olsen, 1993, p. 41). In this way, reforms become routine and tend to be self-​referential: Reforms generate reforms, making the reform process a stable state (Brunsson & Olsen, 1993, 44; cf. also Brunsson, 2009, pp. 91–​104). Other peculiarities of reforms will be explored in the sections that follow. The problem, at least from the perspective of social sciences, is evident: In today’s global society, reform is considered necessary, normal, routine, and obvious. This goes beyond the effectiveness of the reforms, their outcomes and their assumptions, which are anything but obvious. The question that arises at this point is, Why? What is the function of reforms? More generally, one should also ask why a society such as the current one

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    371 focuses so explicitly and unthinkingly on the planned change to its structures, despite being a system that has already demonstrated repeatedly that it cannot be planned and is simultaneously both highly stable and completely unstable.8

Central Importance of Organizations What can be changed through reform? What can be decided by those who plan and implement a reform? In the educational system, reforms have historically been directed toward the two values of equality and quality. Equality refers to equality of opportunity, that is, a common starting point for everyone, and then allowing quality (or excellence as it is called in America) to be expressed through talent and commitment. When pedagogy speaks of equality and quality, it is thinking of its own contribution to society at large: Only if education manages to implement both values through reforms can society count on competent and active human beings. The aim is to improve education in order to improve society9—​otherwise why reform? However, this apparent axiom hides some problems, which, from a sociological perspective, cannot be overlooked. The most important of these is posed by the initial question: On what can reform intervene to change education and improve society? What variables does it have at its disposal, on which to base its decisions? In other words, how does one engineer a reform when it comes to planning the interventions deemed necessary? To answer this, we have to move up a few levels of conceptual abstraction and define as clearly as possible what the “object” of the reforms might be. According to Luhmann, a clear distinction between various types of social systems is needed. We have already mentioned societies and organizations and how reforms always refer to both, often giving the impression of confusing them and without ever clarifying what they mean by these concepts. Systems theory has insisted on this point since its inception and proposes distinguishing different types of social systems on the basis of the criterion that determines their boundaries (cf. Baraldi et al., 2021, entry “Social System”). The least complex social system is interaction, that is, communication based on the physical presence of participants; the boundaries of interaction are therefore set by the mutual perception of those who are present at the same time. The simultaneous presence of the participants is also the limiting factor on interaction, since one cannot produce many communications simultaneously without generating confusion and therefore incomprehensibility. But less complex does not mean less important: interaction, in fact, is a social system that emerges almost free of assumptions, simply through the presence of the participants. It was also the only way to produce communication before means of communication such as writing were invented, which allow people to communicate at a distance. In addition, interaction can be found everywhere, even in modern society.

372   Giancarlo Corsi Interaction includes bar conversations, company meetings, religious services celebrated in churches, sports competitions, and, of course, also lessons in school classrooms. Regarding education, in particular, interaction is an indispensable point of reference. Luhmann’s argument in this regard is rather complex and has to do with the improbability of particularly sophisticated communications being accepted and taken as a starting point for further communications, for example in the case of scientific assertions, of arbitrary provisions by the political power or of access to scarce resources through money. The solution consists in symbolically generalized media of communication, such as scientific truth, power, or money (Luhmann, 2012, p. 190ff.), which motivate acceptance instead of rejection. Educational communication is also highly improbable, and it is so from at least two points of view: pupils can refuse the knowledge that is conveyed by the teachers and even more so their intention to educate them. But the function of education is to change the psychic dispositions of human beings, therefore the psychic environment of society, not in connecting communication to other communication—​and for this reason it does not have its own symbolically generalized communication medium. It must rely on its functional equivalent, namely interaction in the classroom (Luhmann, 2012, pp. 246–​247), where the resistance to, and refusal of educational communication can at least be kept under control. For this reason, education can be autonomous only in the classroom. Nevertheless, some recent developments suggest that this constraint is loosening. The growing importance of transnational student mobility programs (such as Erasmus +​in the European Union), for example, as well as the increasingly massive spread of distance learning platforms are signs of a trend toward education that transcends classroom boundaries (Vanden Broeck, 2020). A second type of social system is the formal organization. As Luhmann points out, here the boundaries of the system are established by the criterion of membership, that is, the difference between those who are members of the organization and all others who are not. This is why organizations are different from interactions: They do not finish when employees go back home after working hours. The decisions taken by members of organizations are not simply part of the web of interactive communications, for example of a meeting, but are part of the much larger and more complex network that includes all the decisions of the organization. This is why organizational structures are of a completely different nature and are much more than the simultaneous presence of participants. We need to be precise about this point because it is of fundamental importance to our theme (Luhmann, 2018, p. 181ff.). There are at least three organizational structures: • The personnel, which includes the characteristics of the organization’s members. Typically, these are skills, training, experience, individual characteristics—​that is, everything about the individual person that may be relevant to decision-​making processes. • Routes of communication, which shape the skills and responsibilities needed by the organization. Broken down into offices, for example, as well as hierarchy, technical skills, and management skills.

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    373 • Decision programs, which can be divided into conditional programs and purposive programs (Luhmann, 2018, p. 213ff). Conditional programs include all the conditions that decisions must take into account regardless of the actual future circumstances that might trigger the program (rules, organizational norms, and hierarchical constraints but also instructions for maintaining or repairing machinery, and so on). While conditional programs look to the past, purposive programs look to the future and include the goals and objectives that one seeks to achieve. The more general resources of any organization, especially money, revolve in turn around these structures: Any reform project costs money and organizations are the place where the amount of money required, the purpose, and when it is needed are planned. The third and final type of social system is society, which includes within itself all the communication that is produced, and only communication (Luhmann, 2012, p. 40ff.). Its boundaries are the boundaries of the social sphere; its environment therefore encompasses everything that is not communication—​from matter to biological life, down to the consciousness of individuals. How society is differentiated internally is important. Systems theory speaks of functional differentiation, which is the primary structure of modern society. This concept indicates the fact that subsystems are distinguished from each other based on the function they fulfil, and today they are as follows: economics, law, politics, science, families, art, religion, mass media, medicine, and education. Unlike in ancient times, each subsystem has a de facto monopoly over its own function: Only education, for example, can set communicative processes in motion that force learning, in order to allow individual consciousness to participate adequately in the many social contexts in which they will find themselves. Only education as a subsystem can develop knowledge and pedagogical tools of all kinds in order to make something requiring huge expenditure of resources—​namely, educating—​normal and routine. This also means that no subsystem can intervene directly in other subsystems; as much as educational reforms may also place ideologies and political programs at the center of attention, it would make no sense to think that politics can educate. Politics can only set limits for education (or other subsystems) through the decisions it makes, but what happens afterward in school classrooms depends solely on education.10 Having clarified the difference between interactions, organizations, and society as a whole, now the following questions arise: What can be addressed by reform? What are the variables on which reforms intervene? Since interactions are very limited, both temporally and in terms of the complexity they can reach, they cannot be the object of reforms. It is certainly possible to establish the conditions under which they can take place: In the case of education, classroom lessons have a certain duration, follow certain programs and certain teaching methodologies, and communication is regulated in quite a rigid manner (the teacher speaks, while the pupils listen). But such conditions can be set only at the organizational level, to which interactions will then adapt. In a school classroom, innovations that can be introduced at the interactive level have a chance of being registered and subsequently consolidated only if they are accepted by the organization, for example, through lesson

374   Giancarlo Corsi planning. There is no possibility of amplifying variations in interactive communication to the orders of magnitude to which reforms usually aspire, unless they are extended to the level of school organizations. Society, for its part, offers no foothold for reformers (or “revolutionaries”). The ambitions of reformers to change society can only be expressed as values or hopes; one certainly cannot imagine, for example, improving education and therefore society simply by deciding it. “Improvement” is not an option for any decision maker. A reform can certainly aim at increasing equality of opportunity and improving the quality of education, but then it must also state what it intends to change in order to achieve this result. And with that, we come to the central issue: The variables that can be made the object of decision-​making and reform planning are not values or even “improvement” but only organizational structures. Organizations are fundamental to modern society, not only because they make it possible to concentrate resources, motivate highly improbable behaviors (“working”), or guarantee a certain social order, but also because they are the only plane of social reality on which one can intervene in a programmed manner and in the medium and long term.11 Whether and how an improvement can be achieved can be deduced retrospectively by analyzing data and interpreting differences and variations, which are, however, always related to the organizational dimension. Among other things, as we shall see, verifying whether there have been any improvements is not an easy task either. If we consider how reforms are planned, it is actually always a question of rules and regulations (conditional programs), objectives to be achieved, deadlines and time limits (purposive programs), responsibilities and competencies (routes of communication), personnel to be recruited or involved and then funding, organizations to be entrusted with the work, checks and monitoring, and possibly technological apparatus. For an outside observer of educational reforms (such as sociology or organizational studies), there is an obvious and significant problem here: How can one think of improving education and therefore society by intervening in organizations? Reformers take this possibility for granted, but the gap between ambitions and what can actually be accomplished remains evident and can already be seen by considering how reform projects are drawn up. There is usually a first part, which illustrates the ideals and values underlying the reform, followed by a second part, where it is specified what will be done in practice, above all the interventions at the level of programs and routes of communication, including, of course, the costs.12 “Mechanisms of hope” (Brunsson, 2006) are combined with decision-​making possibilities limited to the organizational level. This is not all, however. There are other peculiarities that have to be taken into account.

Contradictions in Purpose Since they are a form of planning, reforms are also characterized by their declared goals. This is what should give meaning to the intentions of the reformers. But here, too, things are far from simple.

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    375 The goals underlying reforms are often set and stated in a twofold manner. Education is a good example, as we have already outlined earlier: School reforms always start from the two traditional ideals of quality of education (or, to use American hyperbole, “excellence”) and equality, today understood primarily as equality of opportunity. Regardless of how these two values are interpreted, it is nevertheless clear that they are incompatible with each other. “Quality” becomes visible only if it produces differences in performance, while equality can be observed only if no differences are found. Even when it comes to differences that may be attributed to students’ performance, that is, to their talent and commitment, doubts may always remain about the possible negative role of extracurricular socializing factors that cannot be eliminated (family, social origin, the local environment in which the pupil grows up, and so on). This incompatibility cannot be eliminated: precisely because they are formulated as distinguishing features, the ideal purposes of the reforms cannot be proposed separately. No one would support an initiative that aimed at achieving only quality of education without also demanding equality, or vice versa. The function of these ideal goals is probably to legitimize the reforms, since nobody could object to the “value of the values.” The implementation of the reform is therefore left with the arduous task of concealing the contradiction, in fact, the constitutive paradox of the reforms.13 Lastly, order and meaning must be restored to whatever is established as an actual consequence of the reforms—​while waiting to plan the next one. This issue can be analyzed from another perspective, distinguishing between values and programs (Luhmann, 2013, p. 105). Values are positive symbolic preferences, in regard to which no resistance, opposition, or dissent is expected: “the validity of values is assumed. Values are treated as tacit knowledge” (Luhmann, 1996, p. 65, italics in the original). In principle, in fact, no one denies the central importance of equality of opportunity or of the quality of education. Programs, on the other hand, correspond to what we previously said about organizations: They establish the criteria for the correctness of the decisions to be taken and therefore the conditions to be met and the objectives to be achieved. At this level of programs, opposition and disagreement are always and inevitably generated, since deciding means choosing one alternative while discarding others that are equally possible. Equality of opportunity can be expressed through various organizational and interactive approaches in the classroom: for example, how to manage the presence of disabled students, or how to introduce new teaching technologies, taking into account problems such as the digital divide or the financial difficulties of some families. Values and programs are, therefore, loosely coupled: Values do not indicate unambiguously which programs should implement them, while programs can always be associated with different values without losing their purpose. This allows a certain freedom in the concrete planning of reforms, but, above all, it constructs the frame within which different positions and opinions can be articulated. The frame is the reform associated with the values that legitimize it, and in this way no one can question its necessity. Discussions start at the level of the programs, without going outside the frame. This is also probably one of the reasons why reforms are so widespread and considered indispensable. But this is also why they pose a further problem: how to evaluate their consequences.

376   Giancarlo Corsi

Assessment “Judging an innovation’s success or failure is no easy task” (Cuban, 1998, p. 455). The failure/​success perspective is rarely a true representation of the consequences of reforms. One usually finds oneself in a situation that can be viewed either way. In times of open skepticism and pessimism, observers of the consequences of reforms are more likely to lean toward a negative assessment. But this, too, is part of planning: The time between the inception of a reform, based on principles, and its assessment, based on the results, means that “for all reforms, explanations for failure are thus built in from the outset” (Luhmann, 2018, p. 278). Explaining apparent successes is also difficult, if not impossible. Indeed, just when it seems that the goals have been achieved, one does not know how to determine whether a given change (judged positively) can be attributed to the reform, as one of its effects. To give just one example, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a reformist wave was set in motion on a global scale. Educational reforms were implemented in many countries, not only in Europe, and one of the goals was to eliminate gender inequalities in access to higher education (Corsi, 2013). After a while, it was found that such differences were no longer so conspicuous, and the question was, of course, whether it was thanks to the reform. But not even the reformers themselves arrived at a definite conclusion: Was it due to the reform or to the zeitgeist, which made certain differences (in this case, gender) progressively less relevant, replacing them with more “current” ones (today, e.g., religious or ethnic differences)? In any case, it is clear that cause/​effect schemes are totally inadequate to describe, let alone explain, the consequences of reforms.14 At this point one must inevitably ask why reform is pursued continuously, intensively, and globally. It is very hard to give a clear answer to this question. Systems theory attempts to analyze this phenomenon from the perspective of the theory of evolution. The connection between reform and evolution is quite immediate, since reforming means changing structures, and structural change is the object of evolutionary theories. But this immediacy is lost as soon as one asks what role reforms may play in the evolution of society.

Evolution In his book Organization and Decision, Luhmann titles the chapter devoted to reforms “The Poetry of Reforms and the Reality of Evolution.” The distinction between poetry and reality indicates the fact that reforms are based on projections of the future that coincide with desires and aspirations, more or less realistic, and a good dose of rhetoric that legitimizes them. Evolution, on the other hand, describes structural change as observed, whatever it may be. Furthermore, reforms appear as intentional and

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    377 inherently positive changes, whereas evolution encompasses all structural changes, intentional or not, positive and negative. Extinction and destruction also contribute to evolution. For this reason, “evolution . . . is not a method for solving problems. It provides no answer to urgent questions that arise when an organisation seeks to improve things or react to deterioration. Reform can therefore not be abandoned in favour of evolution” (Luhmann, 2018, pp. 283–​284). For Luhmann, it is important to move beyond contrasting theories of planning and evolution as though they were alternatives or contradictory to each other. The planning of reforms is also a stage of evolution, even if its contribution cannot be predicted or kept under control. Besides, the problem is not only the unintended consequences of decisions or the many external factors that can interfere with planning. The problem is also, if not primarily, the fact that “as soon as the intention to reform becomes known, the situation becomes complicated. Opinions for and against reform are advanced, along with the wide-​ranging modifications, stipulations, and anticipations. Delays occur, as well as oscillation between old and new ideas, and the intentions to reform have to be described over and over again in adaptation to changing situations” (Luhmann, 2018, p. 275). This is an extremely important point, which not only organizations but also theories of organization tend to underestimate or even ignore. The public visibility of reformers’ intentions creates the possibility to react to them with acceptance or rejection and this will “oblige the affected parties to state their views. . . . The focus on the future that is now to be decided always intensifies conflicts” (Luhmann, 2018, p. 283). In this sense, “the function of reforms could then be to bring differences between interests to light that would otherwise have remained latent, thus contributing to controversial self-​ descriptions of the system; and hence to produce resistance by the system to the system, enabling a better understanding of reality than the problem/​solution schema can offer” (Luhmann, 2018, p. 277).15 In other words, reforms generate an uncertainty produced by the organization itself, an uncertainty to which the organization must react—​without being able to predict how. In this sense, Luhmann also attributes this function to reforms: “reforms are accordingly nothing other than an expression of a structural dynamic, and they serve not to attain their goals but to maintain this dynamic” (Luhmann, 2018, p. 278). And again: “This also creates a high degree of sensitivity to the changes that take place in society. The endogenously restless system can seize chance and opportunities and adopt the willingness to reform according to changing trends and needs. Thus, it cannot be planned, but it can evolve” (Luhmann & Schorr, 1988, p. 471). The reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, for example, were oriented toward values such as the democratization of schools and the cooperation of all those involved. On the organizational level, the new models were the German comprehensive school (Gesamtschule) and the non-​graded school in the United States. The watchwords were permeability, multiage grouping, team teaching, individual working, and mastering. Today few remember the enthusiasm of the time and what reformers wanted to achieve (Cuban, 2019). No one would say those ideals have come true—​but no one would want to go

378   Giancarlo Corsi back. Things have also changed thanks to the structural instability caused by those reforms. In more recent times, some of those ideas have been taken up, naturally in new forms. Many scholars speak of a shift “from teaching to learning,” focusing on what is being learned by pupils, that is, key skills or transferable skills for a future that remains unknown (Mangez & Vanden Broeck, 2020). Learning is understood as the students’ ability to build the knowledge and skills that will become necessary or useful in the course of their life. We will see if and to what extent ideas like these and the consequent reforms will be able to “destabilize” the school system to allow it to adapt to a rapidly changing society. From a sociological point of view, an important question is how to manage such changes on an organizational level. If the boundaries of the school become less clear-​cut, if—​as we have seen above—​the interaction in the classroom loses its centrality and if the political control of education shifts from the classic governing to forms of governance that no longer claim to impose themselves only through collectively binding decisions: Will it still be possible to recognize what students learn as educational outcome? Be that as it may, thanks to developments like these, organizations create new possibilities for self-​observation and “empower” their reality, in the sense that they activate possibilities that are not envisaged and are in fact excluded by the reforms, but which could be exploited. However, this potential, precisely because it is unplanned, can be exploited only on occasion, only incidentally, and only if the opportunity is seen and seized. That is, only evolutionarily. The calls for flexibility, creativity, or hypocrisy, widespread and welcome also in organizational studies,16 seem to go in this direction of excluding and at the same time preserving possibilities—​but they can do so only in paradoxical form, that is, with injunctions that can be followed only by contradicting them (Luhmann, 2018, p. 291). In the end, recommendations such as creativity or flexibility serve to hide the underlying problem: That things are changed through decision and reform, but we do not know exactly how. All of this does not mean that systems theory in any way suggests that reforming is useless or even harmful. The basis for decision-​making, that is, organizational structures, can be changed, and refraining from doing so simply because one fears disappointment or because one knows that the results will be different from those hoped for would make no sense—​as little, in fact, as thinking about actually achieving the values deemed desirable. If one adopts the perspective offered by evolutionary theory, the problem must be approached quite differently, namely by asking under which conditions a divergent communication that changes structures can succeed (or not) and this despite, indeed precisely because it remains uncertain and unknown what future communication will make of it (Luhmann, 2018, p. 285). One of the cornerstones of the theory of evolution, in fact, is the idea that structural changes (variations), however they are induced, do not allow us to predict their outcomes. No social system can take into account every possible causal relationship nor control the consequences of a novelty that changes existing structures. In the language of systems theory, complexity must be reduced. In other words, certain connections, certain causal relationships can be observed and sometimes even kept under control, while many others are left to chance. This is all the more true in

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    379 the case of reforms, since reactions are triggered not only by planned changes but also by the intentions of the reformers. In this sense, variations “are always embedded in an evolutionary process that takes them up, we may say, in a deformed state” (Luhmann, 2018, p. 286).17 Such a theoretical framework is very complex, but it allows us to understand more clearly the purpose of reforms and their peculiar characteristics. At the same time, however, it leaves many questions open, which we do not claim to resolve here. We have limited ourselves to highlighting two of them.

Open Questions The first question concerns the evolution of education as a subsystem of society as a whole. As mentioned previously, according to systems theory, not only does the overall society evolve but also its subsystems. Education is one of these. However, Luhmann himself has some doubts. In his monograph on education, referring to the birth of modern education, he writes: “special demands on education presuppose a societal complexity that has already arisen, for which training must then be given. [Education] is a consequence of social differentiations that have already occurred; it is not a pacemaker of socio-​cultural evolution” (Luhmann, 2000, p. 111). And then, at the end, regarding the connection between reforms and evolution and in contrast to what he himself had stated in previous writings: “Reforms are a kind of substitute for evolution, an evolution that, given the administrative centralisation of the system and the political responsibility for its top levels, is in fact excluded” (Luhmann, 2000, p. 166). Actually excluded! The text does not explain in detail what is meant. So we must try to reconstruct the argument, starting with these two rather surprising statements. The first says that education follows societal evolution but does not stimulate it, as other subsystems do—​think of the decisive role played by law and religion in tribal societies or by economics and politics in early modernity. The second adds that the educational system does not evolve and that to change its structures it relies on reforms. This would explain the centrality they have in the history of education, as well as their obsessive repetition, but it remains to be seen why education is such a glaring exception. The answer could lie in its societal function, which consists in changing not the social structures, but the psychic dispositions of individuals, that is, the psychic environment of society. Educational communication makes sense only from this perspective, from didactics to pedagogy, to schools, up to major reforms. For this, education depends very strongly on interaction, and in turn interaction needs an organization to take place regularly. Then it can be assumed that state administrative control is necessary to guarantee a minimum of homogeneity and coherence of educational practices—​in other words, to avoid chaos. Moreover, this applies not only to education; it also applies to medicine, which intervenes on the environment of society (disease treatment) and for this reason

380   Giancarlo Corsi requires interactions and organizations as well as strong state administrative control. Not surprisingly, even in medicine, reforms always have a political, as well as a medical, value.18 The second question that remains open concerns the relationship among evolution, society (with its subsystems), and formal organizations. There is no doubt that society is a system that evolves: One only needs to compare the tribal societies, studied by anthropology and ethnology, late medieval European society, and modern world society, to realize that the theoretical framework that started with Darwin can also be applied in the social sciences. What about organizations? So far, no one has provided an answer. Organizational studies talk about evolution in regard to populations of organizations, especially in the field of economics. According to this theory, the evolving entity is the population, not the individual organization.19 Whether the individual organization evolves or gradually adapts to changing conditions it encounters in its social environment, however, is unclear. It is obvious that organizations are constantly changing, but we know that structural change is also evolutionary change only if it can be observed on the basis of the distinction between variation and selection. Is this the case for organizations? It is, in fact, hard to say. Furthermore, one should ask what role organizations play in the evolution of society. In the meantime, we know that social systems such as formal organizations exist only in modernity, and therefore in what systems theory calls functional differentiation. At a first glance, one might say that in modernity, significant innovations for the evolution of society are, if not produced, at least “channeled” by organizations. This is the case of communication technologies, from the printing press onward; even the phenomenon we call globalization has become visible thanks to organizations. This does not mean that the evolutionary achievements of modernity are to be attributed to one organization or another. However, the ability to generate structural changes today depends on decisions. Individual subsystems then select whatever has communicative connectivity and is therefore worth transforming into operational structure. This is where reforms come in, reforms understood as “self-​generating programs for the variation of system structures” (Luhmann, 2000, p. 166)—​in other words, reforms are not able to know whether there will be a positive outcome for evolution, but they “lead to more (and more rapid) unintentional evolution” (Luhmann, 1982, p. 134). This is just the start of the discussion. It is up to future research to develop these insights further.

Notes 1. Typical and recurring expressions from this era are very clear: in the ecclesiastical sphere, for example, when writing: “omnia reformanda quae deformata sunt” or “ecclesia reformanda tam in capite quam in membris,” in the sense of returning the institution “in pristinum statum.” With many sources and historical material, see especially Ritter and Gründer (1992) and Brunner et al. (1972–​1997).

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    381 2. On this maxim and on the difference between old and new in ancient tradition, see Stockmeier (1980). 3. Cf. the most widely known and seminal test: Eisenstein (1983/​2005), Chapter 6. 4. See, for example, Condillac (1760): “pour corriger il suffit de faire quelques changements en mieux; pour réformer il faut tout changer,” Synonymes, 481, entry “réformer,” quoted in Reichardt et al. (1985–​1988), entry “réform.” In the Encyclopédie of 1751, tome 13: 890, this semantic shift seems to cause some embarrassment, as can be seen from the completely tautological definition of the concept of reform: “la réformation est l’action de reformer; la réforme en est l’effect.” 5. The reference author is Nils Brunsson. See Brunsson and Olsen (1993) and Brunsson (2009). 6. In addition to rationality, the use of experts and participation also enables compensatory legitimation (Weiler, 1983). 7. See Luhmann (2018, p. 104). That a paradox is hidden here is clear in a famous sentence of Heinz von Foerster: “Only those questions which are in principle undecidable, we can decide” (Von Foerster, 2003, p. 293). 8. “Ultrastable” in the sense of Ashby (1952, pp. 80–​99). 9. Education treats itself as though it needs educating (Luhmann & Schorr, 1988, p. 468). 10. This does not mean that one can only educate in schools—​one can also educate in the family. In fact, subsystems do not coincide with the organizations that arise within them, even though without organizations they could not fulfil their function. 11. Of course, this does not apply only to education: for example, one can hope for a “fairer” economy, with a redistribution of income that avoids excessive concentrations of capital in a few hands, with work organization that respects workers’ rights and so on. However, none of this can be achieved without changing the rules on financial transactions, forms of taxation or working conditions in companies, and in any case only by changing organizational parameters. Another example could be scientific research: Scientists cannot be forced by decree to discover or invent what one would like. However, one can (and can only) establish criteria to reward results deemed worthy, to encourage promising careers, or, in a negative direction, to avoid abuses of power in universities and so on. Again, these are organizational variables. 12. A parallel with a type of text coming from a completely different context—​law and politics—​springs to mind, namely the constitution: when constitutions are written, the first part establishes fundamental rights, and the second part specifies remits, powers and delegations. Here again, the ideal plane precedes the organizational one. 13. To maintain a broad outlook over the phenomenon we are studying, it is worth noting that this peculiarity is not limited to education. In public administrations, for example, reforms are often inspired by the twin ideals of flexibility and transparency. If one wants to promote flexibility, and therefore also a certain ability to adapt to local, concrete, or exceptional situations, thus delegating varying degrees of decision-​making autonomy to peripheral administrations, one will certainly find it easier to meet needs that would otherwise become tangled up in bureaucracy; but then one cannot expect decision-​making processes to be transparent, that is, that it will be easy and straightforward to trace the purpose of and responsibility for decisions taken or procedures implemented. In the same way, translating transparency into decisional programs can only mean: bureaucratic controls on what is decided (or not decided), more or less strict regulation of what is possible or excluded from the decision-​making power of officials, easier access to documents,

382   Giancarlo Corsi records and protocols of the offices, and so on—​in other words, the opposite of flexibility. Similar examples can be provided for all subsystems. 14. Similar considerations referring to reforms in the United Kingdom can be found in Hoyle and Wallace (2007, p. 10): the quality of education has improved, but it cannot be unequivocally demonstrated. 15. See also Van de Ven (2017), which defines innovation as a nonlinear cycle of divergent and convergent activities. 16. In the sense of Brunsson (2002). 17. It is interesting to note that while in the ancient tradition it was the nature of things, including human beings, to deform the state of creation in the course of finite time, now it is evolution, in the course of time without beginning or end. We could say that the concept of evolution has taken the place of nature in describing unpredictable change that goes beyond intentionality. 18. In both cases, however, the autonomy of the system is not threatened by the political value of the reforms: reforms, in fact, “are imposed or avoided by organizational means and therefore cannot go beyond the limits of this type of system. Furthermore, reforms refer to existing organizations and remain confined to the subsystem in which those organizations exist. Even here they cannot succeed in disrupting school interactions” (Luhmann, 2000, p. 166). Jesse Goodman (1995) also comes to the same conclusion: reforms cannot succeed in changing teaching and learning. 19. See Luhmann (2018, p. 284). For the “population ecology” of organizations, see Hannan and Freeman (1977) and Hannan (2005). An advantage of this population concept could be the following: “A population consists of individuals, and this means of differing individuals. It is thus a polymorphous unity. The source of variation is not seen . . . as the occasional occurrence of particularly creative, innovative, assertive individuals, but as the diversity of individuals in the collectivity of the population. . . . The possibility of variation lies in variety and not in the sufficiently probable chance of there being exemplars among a large number of individuals that distinguish themselves as being particularly innovative” (Luhmann, 2012, p. 263).

References Ashby, W. R. (1952). Design for a brain. Chapman & Hall. Baraldi, C., Corsi, G., & Esposito, E. (2021). Luhmann unlocked. Transcript Verlag. Baratto, S. (1982). L’odierno stato dell’esperimento pedagogico. Rassegna di pedagogia, 40, 117–​129. Brunner, O., Conze, W., & Koselleck, R. (Eds.) (1972–​1997). Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: historisches Lexikon zur politisch-​sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. Klett. Brunsson, N. (2002). The organization of hypocrisy: Talk, decisions and actions in organizations. Copenhagen Business School Press. Brunsson, N. (2006). Mechanisms of hope. Copenhagen Business School Press. Brunsson, N. (2009). Reform as routine: Organizational change and stability in the modern world. Oxford University Press. Brunsson, N., & Olsen, J. P. (1993). The reforming organization. Routledge. Corsi, G. (2013). Negative Identität. Evolutionstheoretische Probleme mit Reformen im Erziehungssystem. In J. Müller & V. von Groddeck (Eds.), (Un)Bestimmtheit: Praktische Problemkonstellationen (pp. 133–​145). Wilhelm Fink Verlag.

Education Reform as a Global Phenomenon    383 Cuban, L. (1990). Reforming again, again, and again. Educational Researcher, 19(1), 3–​13. Cuban, L. (1995). The hidden variable: How organizations influence teacher responses to secondary science curriculum reform. Theory into Practice, 34(1), 4–​11. Cuban, L. (1998). How schools change reforms: Redefining reform success and failure. Teachers College Record, 99(3), 453–​477. Cuban, L. (2019). Whatever happened to the non graded school? https://​lar​rycu​ban.wordpr​ ess.com/​2019/​01/​18/​whate​ver-​happe​ned-​to-​the-​non-​gra​ded-​sch​ool/​. Eisenstein, E. (1979). The printing press as an agent of change: Communications and cultural transformations in early-​modern Europe. Cambridge University Press. Eisenstein, E. (1983/​ 2005). The printing revolution in early modern Europe. Cambridge University Press. Goodman, J. (1995). Change without difference: School restructuring in historical perspective. Harvard Educational Review, 65(1), 1–​29. Griewank, K. (1969). Der neuzeitliche Revolutionsbegriff. Entstehung und Entwicklung. Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Hannan, M. T. (2005). Ecologies of organizations: Diversity and identity. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(1), 51–​70. Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1977). The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 82(5), 929–​964. Hoyle, E., & Wallace, M. (2007). Educational reform: An ironic perspective. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 35(1), 9–​25. Luhmann, N. (1982). The world society as a social system. International Journal of General Systems, 8, 131–​138. Luhmann, N. (1996). Complexity, structural contingencies and value conflicts. In P. Heelas, S. Lash, & P. Morris (Eds.), Detraditionalization: Critical reflections on authority and identity (pp. 59–​7 1). Blackwell. Luhmann, N. (2000). Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (2012). Theory of society (Vol. 1). Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2013). Theory of society (Vol. 2). Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (2018). Organization and decision (D. Baecker & R. Barrett, Eds.). Cambridge University Press. Luhmann, N., & Schorr. K.-​E. (1988). Strukturelle Bedingungen von Reformpädagogik: Soziologische Analysen zur Pädagogik der Moderne. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 34, 463–​488. Mangez, E., & Vanden Broeck, P. (2020). The history of the future and the shifting forms of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52, 676–​687. Peters, B. G. (2001). From change to change: Patterns of continuing administrative reform in Europe. Public Organization Review: A Global Journal, 1(1), 37–​50. Rachum, I. (1995). The meaning of “revolution” in the English Revolution (1648–​1660). Journal of the History of Ideas, 56, 195–​215. Reichardt, R., Schmitt, E., Lüsebrink, H.-​ J. (1985–​ 1988). Handbuch politisch-​sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich, 1680–​1820. Oldenbourg. Ritter, J., & Gründer, K. (1992). Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Schwabe & Co. AG. Slack, P. (1999). From reformation to improvement: Public welfare in early modern England. Clarendon Press. Stockmeier, P. (1980). Alt und Neu als Prinzipien der frühchristlichen Theologie. In R. Bäumer (Ed.), Reformatio Ecclesiae. Beiträge zu kirchlichen Reformbemühungen von der Alter Kirche bis zur Neuzeit. Festgabe für Erwin Iserloh (pp. 15–​22). Ferdinand Schöningh.

384   Giancarlo Corsi Van de Ven, A. H. (2017). The innovation journey: You can’t control it, but you can learn to maneuver it. Innovation, 19(1), 39–​42. Vanden Broeck, P. (2020). Beyond school: Transnational differentiation and the shifting form of education in world society. Journal of Education Policy, 35(20), 836–​855. Von Foerster, H. (2003). Understanding understanding: Essays on cybernetics and cognition. Springer Verlag. Weiler, H. N. (1983). Legalization, expertise, and participation: Strategies of compensatory legitimation in educational policy. Comparative Education Review, 27(2), 259–​277.

chapter 18

The Rats Unde r t h e Ru g The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context Pieter Vanden Broeck

Introduction: Education, Rationality, and Its Other Side Few themes are rooted as firmly in sociological tradition as the study of rationality. It forms the leitmotif of how sociologists examine a wide range of phenomena, stretching from the everyday practices by which we create social order up to the construction of scientific discovery. In large measure we owe this centrality to Max Weber, for whom rational action was the hallmark of modernity. As is well known, he pointed to rationality as the force that drove gods and unruly fate from our lives, along with unthoughtful traditions and the all too capricious realm of feelings, with its overpowering outbursts of passion or spontaneity. Instead, a calculating attitude is since said to prevail, intent on making the world more controllable and hence predictable. In Weber’s account of our becoming modern, human action increasingly favored such an instrumental orientation to the world, where the conditions for goal attainment are carefully weighed in terms of risks and resources. This rational outlook shrinks the world to a tool, or an impediment, for our purposes. When grasped in these terms, rationality obtains the shape of a script for actors, a program to follow so as to optimize a course of action and maximize its hoped-​for benefits. Weber thus laid the foundation for any sociology that refers to rationality as a matter of acting individuals, either when modeling their singular behavior as the utilitarian pursuit of self-​interest (rational choice theory), when theorizing such voluntaristic effort as normatively organized (the early Talcott Parsons) or when labeling as rational the outcome of their intersubjective agreement (Jürgen Habermas). Against such a view, or perhaps rather in an effort to venture beyond it, this chapter wagers that it might be more fruitful to consider rationality as a trait of systems instead of calculating actors. With this substitution, swapping the focus from purposeful

386   Pieter Vanden Broeck humans to faceless systems, I wish to depict how education can be viewed as developing a rationale of its own, regardless of the human beings involved. As such, my contribution not only departs from the Weberian conception of rationality as a world orientation guiding the action of individuals. It also steps beyond his understanding of education as being subject to this instrumental orientation to the world. What follows will not portray an exogenous “rationalization of education.” By the latter expression, Weber (1946, pp. 240–​244) sought to summarize how education participates in the spread of bureaucracy and is ultimately transformed by this “irresistibly expanding bureaucratization of all public and private relations of authority,” a process he saw intruding into all questions of intimately cultural character. For Weber, the problem at hand was to describe the role education plays in the establishment of a society-​spanning bureaucratic structure. My interest in rationality, on the other hand, is to describe how a reason proper and specific to education comes into being. In particular, I wish to address how such a ratio makes itself apparent when education is organized on a global scale, beyond the borders of nation states and classrooms. What is at stake in this chapter is to uncover how new educational practices, taking place on a global scale from their outset, develop and how they relate to the school classroom. In Europe, European Union governance has since years contributed to the “projectification” of education via funding programs with a global outreach. The ongoing pandemic has spurned face-​to-​face instruction to move from the classroom toward globally operating platforms. With the current chapter, I wish to place these two present-​day developments, projectification and platformization, in an historical overview to highlight a dynamic that shapes their evolutionary path. Taking cues from Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical framework, I shall attribute such an educational rationality neither to knowledge nor to knowing subjects or to other idées fixes stemming from Europe’s philosophical tradition. Instead, with a recourse to second wave cybernetics, rationality will be redefined as the ability of a system to observe and then orient itself by means of the difference between its own doing and that which such doing designates as foreign to its own operativity (Luhmann, 1977, 1998). In Luhmann’s work, rationality refers to this particular probing capacity, the ability of systems to organize and reorganize their own operativity in light of the effects thereby brought about in the environment. His notion of rationality means to capture the strange feedback loops drawn by a system that seeks to control the effects it has on its environment, but that can only do so by means of the repercussions these effects have for its own working, as Elena Esposito (2021, pp. 191–​193) summarizes. Being rational, to sum it up, has more to do with a game of blind man’s bluff than with the self-​actualized certainty we commonly associate with the term: One gropes in the dark chasing the disorienting, often contradictory indications stemming from the outside world and alters course according to perceived changes, hoping not to break a leg. What is gained from such a tottering, tentative rationality is never a steady foothold, not even a temporary one. Luhmann’s redefinition of rationality in terms of the difference between a system and its environment does not bring us back to a unitary world on which Reason can report with authority. Instead of such self-​assurance come always adjustable distinctions, differences which are open to change and hence provide

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    387 detachment from what initially appeared necessary and hence unalterable. I omit, for reasons of clarity and conciseness, much of the proto-​mathematical technicalities that usually adorn the literature once arrived at this stage. The keyword “re-​entry” can suffice here to guide interested readers towards more exhaustive theoretical discussions and explorations of its formal calculus (cf. Baecker, 2007, 7394). Instead, I wish to draw attention to the conceptual merits of such an abstract redefinition of rationality as the tentative boundary management that systems engage in vis-​à-​vis their environment. A first, very evident advantage of approaching rationality as the aptitude of systems to handle purposefully the relationship between themselves and their environment, is that new, unsuspected sites of ratio appear in sight. Rationality is no longer a privilege of humans and their actions but becomes central to portray how the social world, including education, organizes and reorganizes itself. Transposing the general and indeed overly abstract characterization to the topic of education, the question of rationality becomes one of maintaining and crossing the distinction between education and the rest of society—​of how education manages its boundaries, in short. Education can then be observed as rational, whenever it attunes its own highly specific operativity of instruction (system) to the perceived demands or hoped-​for outcomes occurring beyond its borders (environment). When education fashions itself as preparing the future professional life of its students, for example, by fine-​tuning its pedagogical offer (system) to the estimated needs of the labor market (environment), such an attempt at self-​ rationalization becomes apparent. The same holds true whenever instruction (system) tries to attenuate the differences in upbringing (environment) among its pupils in order to guarantee them all an equally open future outside of school, unconditioned by their unequal starting position. Perhaps nowhere clearer than in its most elementary of intentions, namely the ambition to teach (system) so as to guide or to affect the learning processes pertaining to its addressees’ invisible world of thought (environment), education can be described as the effort of establishing a sui generis rationality. Secondly, redefining rationality as a characterization of how systems internally account for and respond to their outside environment has the benefit of pointing almost effortlessly toward the all too apparent difficulties to align one with the other. As the sociology of education likes to underline, school does not at all eliminate inequalities (one example standing for all: Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970), nor does school success safeguard future professional success (their canonical opposite: Boudon, 1974). Speaking of rationality should indeed not be taken to imply that society is thought to evolve or to be steerable toward preferable, more worthwhile outcomes. Luhmann’s redefinition of rationality should not be mistaken as the recipe for such aspirations. On the contrary, his understanding of system rationality draws attention above all to the deficits of reason and the problems that arise whenever social activity develops in either willful or forced disregard of its constitutive environment. As the endless strings of ecological catastrophes illustrate, society as a whole can hardly be described in terms of reason. Our shifting climate exposes the evident difficulties modern society faces taking account of the natural world. “The undeniable, serious, future-​threatening changes in the natural environment triggered by society itself are gradually becoming the rationality

388   Pieter Vanden Broeck problem of this century.” Luhmann (1988, p. 12) had hence already noted at the end of the eighties, spelling out the impasse which contemporary society is grappling with: modernity “depends on a high indifference to its environment for its own operations, but can no longer afford precisely this.” Making rationality distinction-​dependent, contingent upon how the distinction between a system and its environment are drawn, Luhmann reformulates and silently upturns the Weberian notion of rationality. His abstraction uncouples it from acting individuals and from the prospect of a society-​wide bureaucratic structure. The result is not a lazy postmodern compromise, where everybody and everything enjoys its own rationality, but an attempt to articulate the resulting pluralism as the core of the modern experience. In modernity, runs Luhmann’s analysis (1998, pp. 25, 38), rationality increasingly “shifts to high-​energy rationalities that only cover partial phenomena, only orient society’s functions systems.” With the summary label of functional differentiation, he sought to spell out how the various spheres of social activity—​such as education, politics, economy, law, or science, next to, and perhaps surprisingly, love or art—​become the true “operative dischargers of rationality in contemporary society.” This reformulation or rather abstraction of goal rationality into system rationality does not necessarily lead to a rosier diagnosis than Weber’s evocation of bureaucratic capitalism as an iron cage.1 Luhmann’s variation on this well-​known theme lets it erupt into a multitude of domains, each with its own totalizing aspirations and without a common paradigm to reassemble them (Luhmann, 1991). The result, Luhmann notes, falling for a slight moment out of his typically subdued tone, is a society marked by “an excessively close connection between the rationality of the functional systems on the one hand and their fatal consequences on the other” (Luhmann, 1996, p. 197). Much, if not all of Luhmann’s work can be read through this prism, as a research program that charts out these functional rationalities and their lack of integration. But especially in his later years, his attention shifted increasingly to rationality’s other side, zooming in on that which slips away through the cracks of reason. The intent or hope is not at all to thus come toward a tribunal of Reason, able to separate the wheat from the chaff, the reasonable from the unreasonable. Rather, the ambition is to portray rationality in more detail by including its always co-​present opposite, acknowledging (rather than resolving) its inherent doubleness. What Luhmann aspires to is hence to gain a more precise understanding of the “other side of rationality,” one that could be characterized by the semantics of paradox, imaginary space, the blind spot of all observations, the self-​parasitizing parasite, chance or chaos, reentry or necessity, externalizing toward an “unmarked state.” These are ideas that would gain their contours exclusively from precision, fixed by rationality, and that would finally lead to an indirect self-​characterization of the rational. (Luhmann 1998, p. 40)

The following pages will seek to build on this ambition to explore the Dionysian unruliness that is always tied in with the Apollonian search for order and logic. By focusing on

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    389 how Luhmann depicts the relation between school education and its environment, they wish to elucidate how he understood the birth of modern education as accompanied by an exclusionary movement that sought to expel part of the environment, as if it were a pest or a parasite, and so to get rid of the rats hiding under the rug, so to speak. Speaking of educational rationality and its other side, to rephrase it slightly differently, is hence above all a matter of looking at how education constructs the difference between its own reality and the outside world—​and thus of highlighting what such a construction shuts out, what it treats as unwanted. The underlying suspicion is that the movement of expulsion Luhmann observed in school education proves to be instructive for better grasping the ratio that currently shapes the globalization of education.

School Education and Its Context Georg Simmel (1950, p. 21) once compared sociology to geometry, noting how they share a primary interest in the formal traits of phenomena, often leaving the analysis of their content to other scientific disciplines. Either when observing interaction or inquiring into organizations, sociology indeed usually displays little interest in what is actually said among participants or what organizations precisely decide on. Rather, the stress falls on the form of these phenomena—​on their role-​taking procedures, for example, or the structure of their conflicts—​and the thus emerging geometry of the social world. It should hence not surprise that systems theory, too, shows a particular interest in abstract forms, even if it operates along different conceptual oppositions. In what follows, I propose to explore how Luhmann’s understanding of context can be brought into this equation. Both notions, form and context, will act as stand-​ins for the more general terms already introduced, system and environment, respectively. The goal is to transpose the dynamic between the two sides of this opposition to the historical emergence of school education and its context, thus laying bare how an educational rationality develops and at what cost. To that end, I shall first briefly overview how form has been understood by Luhmann in the domain of education, so as to underline subsequently how his varying use of the notion of context offers useful hints on how to grasp the relationship between education and its form of school. In Luhmann’s account, the uniquely modern emergence of multiple distinction-​ dependent rationalities is closely related to their reference to a highly specific problem for which they claim universal authority—​a reification process Luhmann (1995, pp. 464–​465) also abridged as hypostatization. In contemporary society, finding solutions to the quandary of how to organize the scarcity of natural or human resources, for example, is thought of as the exclusive prerogative of the economy. Education, much like the economy and other major domains of social activity, similarly claims a monopoly for its own, highly specific reference problem. Many sociological accounts of what education does or aspires to do formulate education’s problem in terms of individuals (the transmission of knowledge and skills) or their relationships (establishing normative

390   Pieter Vanden Broeck consensus). The classical notion of socialization, then, serves to make such answers more probable. Luhmann made the infamous move to relocate humans outside of society, so as to highlight how the inner world of our individual thoughts strictly differs from the distinct logic of communication processes. As a result, his theory cannot be content with the answers commonly given by sociology to the question what education sets out to do. Luhmann painstakingly attempts to avoid the catch-​all formulae, the “magic spells” (2002, p. 48) provided by classical sociology. Education, so goes his tiptoeing around the all too human-​centric formulations of mainstream sociology, deals with the predicament of how to increase the odds of mutual understanding (2002, p. 81). Such a problem description starts from the hardly polemical given that what happens in our heads is fully untransparent to others and vice versa. How then to successfully imagine—​imagine, not know or share: no philosophical (or any other sort of) mentalism is implied here—​what others think when using words, representations, and other cultural schemes, becomes highly improbable in such a constellation. School education can be described as the delegation of this problem of reference toward a different system type, an organization, which by its decision-​making ability specifies, in always selective and hence contingent ways, what the pedagogical intention will amount to in the daily hustle and bustle of school life. Described in this way, school (as an organization) and education (as a function) do indeed not coincide. Luhmann’s systems theory maintains a sharp distinction between function systems and organizations and considers such a difference characteristic for the complexity of modern society, preventing organizations from representing a function in toto or functions from being fully organized. In highly complex societies, none of the central functions of the societal system can be assumed by a unified organization—​and today even less so than before. [ . . . ] The converse side of this impossibility of delegating major societal functions en bloc to single organizations is that such broad functions cannot be adequately mirrored or understood within the narrow limits of organizations. Neither the leeway for varying societal functions nor the conditions for the compatibility of their divergent ways of being fulfilled can be adequately expressed at the level of organizational goals and criteria. (Luhmann, 1982, p. 81)

The school organization hence neither represents education’s function exclusively or exhaustively, nor does education become “organizable” as a whole. In this precise sense, it would be wrong, or at least short-​sighted, to think of the relationship that Luhmann draws between education and school as a simple equation. For his systems theory unites the two in a functionalist manner, where the latter (school) is only a possible solution that emerged over the course of history in order to tackle the problem raised by the former: how to educate, when such a question no longer finds a legitimate answer in the nature of its addressee but turns into a matter of decision-​making, that is: of organizations? School education can hence be theoretically reframed as this act of delegation, lending its instruction a very recognizable shape or form, as I have elaborated elsewhere

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    391 (Vanden Broeck, 2021). When speaking of the form of school education, the question is not a matter of its essential substance or identity, but of a horizon of possibilities that emerge with this delegation to an organization and the difference that is thus established with all other social activity. The question I wish to raise now is how the distinction thus surfacing between school education and society can be understood in terms of their interrelationships. In order to answer that question, I sketch next an exegetical summary that rereads Luhmann’s writing and stages it as if it were a classical drama (cf. Freytag, 1900), in an effort to thus unearth the tragedy played out by the two protagonists: school and its context. 1. Exposition. As in every play, first one needs to set the scene and properly introduce the characters. While the form of school has been characterized already, the notion of context is still largely a stranger. Context is a word Luhmann uses sporadically when it comes to education and almost exclusively to indicate a specific and situated world. Never does the word develop into a self-​standing concept with its own definition. But it is rather easy to notice how the notion implicitly functions as a complement to his much more frequently used concept of environment (Umwelt). Environment is by definition a residual but constitutive category. In Luhmann’s systems theory, it acts as the undefined counterpart necessary to define the identity of systems. It is part of the conceptual dyad—​system and environment—​through which definitions in search of a system’s essence or ultimate substance can be avoided and rephrased in terms of relationships: “the system is neither ontologically nor analytically more important than the environment; both are what they are only in reference to each other” (Luhmann, 1995, p. 177). Context, in turn, is used to identify specific parts of the relevant environment. Where environment is by definition a residual (but constitutive) category, the undefined counterpart necessary to define the identity of systems, context is used to identify specific parts of the relevant environment. Frequently returning to the expression of education “in the context of,” for example, Luhmann uses the word to highlight how either a specific pedagogical practice, the evolving formulas by which education describes itself or the changing societal conception of time, all frame, enclose, and thus specify education by virtue of being its socio-​historical context (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, pp. 69–​96, 106, 165–​180). The career of pupils, similarly, is described as stretching out over a variety of discontinuous contexts provided by the school system (2000, p. 303), indicating again how context is a term used in reference to a specific, always determined part of the world surrounding the actual phenomenon put under attention. Next to this largely familiar use of the term as the stage or setting for other phenomena, Luhmann also uses context to describe the close link between socialization and its immediate setting. Differing from the classical view that understands socialization as conducive to the internalization of values (Emile Durkheim) or normative consensus (Parsons again), Luhmann does not define the concept with reference to its capacity to successfully establish social conformity; quite to the contrary.2 What is said to define socialization is its inevitable context dependence. Being socialized always implies learning in a specific context; it is restricted to the immediate setting wherein it occurs. When

392   Pieter Vanden Broeck in Rome, one learns to do as the Romans do. But that is of little use elsewhere. What is learned through the accidental and largely implicit learning processes of socialization does not travel well beyond its context of origin. Precisely therein lies its main difference from (formal) education. What education achieves through its formal institutions is setting standards for life outside of school or university. And hence, Luhmann (1987, p. 178) notes, not without irony, that despite all the advertising for lifelong learning, “education does not have itself as its ultimate purpose. It creates conditions for participation in other systems, and since the 18th century this has been thought of primarily, almost exclusively, in terms of professional careers.”3 It is nothing short of utopian to expect that learning, whether formal or informal, leads us toward the normative consensus Parsons and Durkheim spoke of, in the sense of an agreement between our states of consciousness. But feigned consensus (if one may put it that way) is indispensable if the autopoiesis of social systems is to continue. And through education (we can now also say: training) it can be achieved that this is also possible in non-​standardized situations, whereas socialization remains very strongly bound to its original context. (Luhmann, 2002, p. 81)

When such socialization occurs within the settings of the family, context becomes shorthand for the household, usable to indicate one’s descent (Herkunftskontext). It indicates the limited perimeter family life offers for education as a distinctly formed activity (Luhmann, 2002, pp. 60–​61). Here the story suddenly gains interest, because even if family education admittedly does not crystallize into a distinguishable (sub)system of education itself, its undeniable relevance means that school might very well obtain a primacy, but never an exclusivity on education. The two main characters not only require and evoke each other; the suspicion grows they also live at odds with one another. Not least because in modern family life, the possibilities for instruction are heavily confined by the redefinition of education in the household as preparation or support for school (cf. Tyrell & Vanderstraeten 2007). The household is expected to play second fiddle, as it were, without making too much of a scene.4 2. Rise. The play has begun, the protagonists have shown who they are, and the playwright hopes some interest has been aroused. Let us now pan across to show how the relationship between school and its context is further complicated. This is a good moment to point out that Luhmann uses context as well to indicate the historical change by which modern education became a specific setting in its own right. What is at stake in his writings could easily be summarized as an account of how education itself gradually became a “system context” (2000, p. 124), that is, a context of its own, emancipating itself from all other spheres of social activity. Central to this development is the creation of a space or setting where, owing to its spatial layout, instruction unfolds under the condition of mutual perception. Pointing out how interaction in classrooms always develops under the condition of a shared situatedness—​a physical co-​presence of pupils and their teacher in a

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    393 shared space—​Luhmann remarks how this context enforces self-​restriction onto all participants. All involved parties, teachers included, know they are perceived while they perceive each other. The classroom, in short, fences off a space for reflexive perception, a context (for the perception) of perception. Precisely this perceptual context, where “perceiving” always equates “being perceived,” creates and ensures, so Luhmann emphasizes, the “peculiar and peculiarly evidential kind of sociality that makes it possible to focus the explicit communication on teaching” (2002, p. 57). Since all references to the shared context require no further explication, because their meaning is evident and visible to everybody present, the interaction is relieved from this communicative burden and can concentrate on instruction. The teacher only has to point to a pupil and say “you,” for all the others to breathe a sigh of relief as the class continues. Such indexical expressions (like “you” or “we,” “this” or “that”) and other situation markers that would undoubtedly require further explication in a written text like the current chapter can be left implicit in class since its narrow perimeter limits their possible meaning sufficiently. The resulting complexity reduction, Luhmann notes, is what makes instruction possible in the first place. 3. Climax. What thus comes to the fore is a specific world of instruction, a world of school with its own autonomy. Behind the closed door of the classroom, education develops and implements its society-​wide competence for conveying the knowledge considered necessary to lead our lives and codes (with the help of grades, tests, and assignments) the outcome of the resulting interaction as either successful or not. Any educational rationality, any attempt to attune the instruction to the perceived demands or changes of its environment starts from here. Only with the technical invention of the classroom could instruction emancipate itself from the surrounding social activity and begin the impossible task of bridging the thus created distance between education and society. Classroom interaction denotes, in other words, how school education creates the therefore necessary, secluded space. Classrooms provide a space where professional teachers can give expression to what education is and entails, freed from direct external interference. That holds true for religion and politics, historically the two ambits of society most closely involved with education, but also for the science that helped propel this move towards autonomy. The world of schools: it no longer only represents a Pedagogy that has been emancipated from “religion” and “state”; instead, it is a special world of specific experiences that neither the scientific Pedagogy nor the political system can ignore. (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 124)

Once instruction moved into the classroom, the necessary leeway—​regarding who to teach what and when or how—​emerged for school education to shape into its own distinctive form. From homework to salaries via school buildings, teaching material, professional qualifications, or curricular principles and much more: Apart from the good intentions shared by parental and scholastic education, “everything else needs to be rebuilt from there” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 61).

394   Pieter Vanden Broeck But while the modern school system thus (re)built education almost from scratch, it is certainly true that the resulting autonomy depended and today still depends on state involvement for many of its administrative and regulative needs. That makes it, even nowadays, hard to recognize the functional autonomy of the education system. Instead of insisting on educational autonomy, it might seem more appropriate to consider school as a cog in the machinery of the state administration, steered by its responsible ministry. The bulk of studies on education policy certainly seem to contend as much. Education’s dependence on its political administration should, however, not be confused with a lack of educational autonomy, Luhmann (2002, p. 116) warns us. “The state can introduce school obligation and carry the costs of schools and higher education”; nevertheless “it can as an organization of the political system not teach itself.” For teaching, schools with teachers, pupils, and curricula occur and one does not get very far explaining what happens in schools, if the resulting amalgam is understood as a mere matter of state governance or political decision-​making, Luhmann (2002, p. 147) underlines. One can, in that regard, note a slight parallel with certain branches of the Anglo-​Saxon literature. When speaking of a so-​called grammar of schooling, David Tyack and Larry Cuban (1995) reached a very similar conclusion, stressing how only very “few reforms aimed at the classroom make it past the door permanently” (Cuban, 1990, p. 11). For Luhmann, too, the withdrawn space of the classroom generates an educational sovereignty within its limited perimeter. But curiously enough, the autonomy thus gained is observed as hinging on a very specific act of exclusion. 4. Fall. The latent conflict between the school and its context, which has been palpable from the outset, starts to gain clearer contours. Elaborating on the conditions necessary for the crystallization of education into a world sui generis, Luhmann indicates classrooms as the “technical invention” to keep the encompassing environment from seeping in, thus spurring the differentiation of education as a system, different from other societal spheres (Luhmann, 2002, p. 119). Understood as such, the environment comes to stand for an obstacle to overcome, something that must be kept at bay for instruction to become possible. That holds in particular for the context of one’s upbringing, for the household. “The function of education is transferred from homes to schools and from fathers to teachers” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 176) and since then, any interference from pupils’ households in the teaching amounts to an unwanted intrusion. With a variant on Ernst Gellner’s (1983) transition to exo-​education, moving education outside of the family household, Luhmann indeed labels school as the evolutionary achievement that expels the context established by pupils’ family background, so as to organize inclusion universally, without distinction (Luhmann, 1990; 2002, p. 61). School is expected to be the place where one stops being a daughter or a son, at least temporarily. Without this expulsion of the family background—​or emancipation from it, as pedagogy undoubtedly prefers—​there can be neither pupils nor students. The expression Luhmann (1990) favors to portray this state of affairs is the homogenization of education’s point of departure on which all school interaction is said to rest. By addressing all pupils as equal at the beginning, by exorcising their differences in upbringing, as if they were all starting from a blank slate, their diverging previous

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    395 experiences can be ignored and all differences among them that come to light afterward, during their school career, can be attributed to the thus developing education system itself.5 In this way, the differentiated system of education reacts to a society in which, in general, origin is not a useful indicator of the future, but everything depends on what happens “in between.” Accordingly, pedagogy shifts from the care (of fathers) for their offspring to the care (of educators) for the becoming-​human (idea) and career (end dates) of the children. And it is no longer a matter of securing the well-​born against the constantly lurking dangers of corruption and depravity (and especially in the weak and seducible youth). Rather, it is a matter of making the children into something other than what they are and would become on their own.

Precisely on this point Luhmann’s position differs from Pierre Bourdieu’s (1966) otherwise closely related expression that school is indifferent to the pupils’ differences. Where Bourdieu only sees social conservatism, Luhmann points out the semantics and technology that made autonomous education possible in the first place. But for both authors, school’s urge to homogenize pupils as equals by disregarding their differences inescapably involves harm—​whether one dubs it symbolic violence (Bourdieu) or speaks, with Luhmann, of the cutting lines that a system traces in order to exclude the interference of any third party. 5. Catastrophe. The main character is not only a hero. Like all tragic heroes, it turns out to be deeply flawed. Similar to the establishment of any system rationality, the birth of school is strongly entwined with that which it actively seeks to exclude as foreign to its own doing. At this stage, the exegetical trajectory takes a surprising turn. Regardless, or rather exactly because of the disregard for disparities in upbringing that school education needs to profess, these class differences have a curious way of returning into the classroom. As sociological research over the past half century has repeatedly shown, the expulsion of the household has never been entirely successful. It might very well be that social descent is no longer the organizing principle of education. Children from better-​ off families nonetheless still have better chances of succeeding in the school system. The excluded household comes to haunt the classroom’s lofty pedagogical ideals of equality, much like the parasite’s inevitable return, which without exception comes to disturb any hope for harmony or pure order, as Michel Serres warned us. The rats climb onto the rug when the guests are not looking, when the lights are out, when the party’s over. It’s nighttime, black. What happens would be the obscure opposite of conscious and clear organization, happening behind everyone’s back, the dark side of the system. But what do we call these nocturnal processes? Are they destructive or constructive? What happens at night on the rug covered with crumbs? Is it a still active trace of (an) origin? Or is it only a remainder of failed suppressions? We can, undoubtedly, decide the matter: the battle against rats is already lost; there is no house, ship, or palace that does not have its share. There is no system without parasites. (1982, p. 12)

396   Pieter Vanden Broeck Similarly, differences of social descent indeed return to torment the classroom, although the instruction desperately seeks to remain impartial to them and must do so to even begin teaching. Whether it is at the beginning of the pupil’s school career or at the beginning of class, Luhmann (1990, p. 86) echoes Serres, each moment of instruction first requires an exclusion of its constitutive context, an expulsion which then ultimately and tragically defeats itself. The beginning is not eradication, it is exclusion of the third to establish a systemic logic. It ensures the unequal growth of what is equal and a more or less good harvest. But exclusion, inherent logic, equality and more or less are artificial institutions like geometry. They exclude what Pascal called “coeur” and what today is sometimes treated under the (less appropriate) title of “lifeworld.” No wonder that what is excluded tries to return—​be it as the Other, be it as a parasite, in any case as “noise” that disturbs the lesson.

With his reference to Serres’s parasite, next to Hartmut and Gernot Böhme’s (1982) seminal work on the other side of (Kantian) reason, Luhmann spells out the tragedy that lurks beneath the development of systemic rationality and the ensuing geometry of educational forms.6 For each form of education that appears, an unwanted and expelled part of the environment silently returns to unsettle the thus emerging ratio. While school education cannot but embrace ideals of equality to become a workable reality, the rampant inequalities it generates always carry the distinctive mark of the exclusion that was therefore necessary (Corsi, 1992). The household welcomes itself back uninvited to the classroom in the guise of stubborn class differences that the teaching is unable to acknowledge. The rats return, inevitably, and the question is now how this applies to those forms of education that venture outside the classroom.

School Is Out As I have elaborated in this chapter, Luhmann’s oeuvre can be read as an account of how modern education obtained its precise form of school and allows one to highlight how this morphogenesis corresponded with the emergence of a precarious, always imperfect boundary management. Educational rationality, to summarize, covers then precisely this attempt to purposefully manage the borders between education and society—​an attempt that always carries its own failure, so to speak. There is no building without rats, no Apollo without Dionysus, no system without an excluded environment ready to seep back in. Central to the historical evolution leading to the birth of school education has been the novel prominence of loosely coexisting societal functions and the delegation of that function, in the case of education, to the organizational level of schools. Education, when understood as such, hence stands for nothing more than a form-​less function. It establishes merely a problem of reference that asks how to change people intentionally

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    397 into persons able to participate in society (Luhmann, 2002, p. 38)—​that is, capable of playing the serious game of feigned consensus. The distinctive form of school then appears as a variable and historically varying answer set out to solve that problem. Such a perspective leaves the door open for other forms that address the same problem, and, by way of conclusion, I would like to indicate how two such alternative “formalizations,” in turn, reenact the tragedy sketched herein. Perhaps not surprisingly, each of them relates closely to forms of supranational statehood that increasingly differ and are even said to oppose the nation state. Hence we come to the subject of global education. Because even if the education system functions on a worldwide scale, as I have recently addressed together with Eric Mangez and Vanden Broeck (2021), it is a rather straightforward conclusion that school education constitutes a form of instruction with limited geographical reach. Schools, although undoubtedly a globally present institution (cf. Meyer et al. 1992), do not organize education beyond national borders. To conclude, let me enumerate two contemporary organizational examples that on the contrary seek to precisely do that. 1. Transnational projectification. In recent decades, the European Commission has undertaken several reforms designed to harmonize its widening range of funding programs in the field of education. The various funding programs (Erasmus, Comenius, Grundtvig, da Vinci) previously overcrowding the Euro-​pantheon were gradually streamlined into a single comprehensive program providing financial support for learning activities both inside and outside formal education. The resulting global funding instrument of the European Union, branded Erasmus+​ in 2014 and renewed for seven more years in 2021, breaks down education’s sectoral boundaries while extending its reach to youth work, travel, and even sport. The program today funds a wide range of educational activities that go far beyond the institutional boundaries of school education and organize mobility projects, either virtually (online) or in the physical world (offline). Somewhat parallel to its funding efforts in the field of research, the program thus provides financial support for the projects of transnational networks that group together for a limited duration a multitude of organizations from around the globe, both educational and noneducational, for a one-​off objective that is not expected to be repeated. These networks of organizations are not limited to education’s formal institutions, but regularly include parties that would normally engage in very different social functions, whether private or public. In this way, funded projects assemble extremely heterogeneous networks, which can span almost anything imaginable between nurseries and Fortune 500 companies. 2. Global platformization. The current pandemic, with its widespread closure of schools and universities, has thrown into sharp relief how the introduction of digital technology fundamentally reshapes the organization of education. Within a few months, it became evident that schooling without school or studying without campus prompts the influx of new, private actors on an unprecedented scale, further expanding the global education industry (cf. Verger et al., 2016).

398   Pieter Vanden Broeck Private-​run platforms are now a fixture in education, whether in higher education or kindergartens, and a number of so-​called mega-​platforms stretch out effectively over the entire globe. As Benjamin Bratton (2015) has theorized upon, such platforms establish a novel architecture for dividing up the world into new sovereign spaces that increasingly overlap, compete with and even perforate the borders of state sovereignty. As the burgeoning model of hybrid instruction has made tangible over the past year, by attempting to straddle both online and offline audiences, education finds itself in a strikingly similar predicament, caught in the uneasy balance between the norms of (national) school instruction and (global) platforms coming with their own rules of use. What unites the two developments, next to their ability to organize education beyond national borders, is a profusely professed discontent with school. For decades now, the European Union has made no secret of its disgruntlement with the national school systems of its member states. Resorting to the new(ish) vocabulary of learning—​such as lifelong learning of course, next to learning outcomes, learning environments and other permutations—​European Union policy openly disavows education that remains fenced within its formal institutions (cf. Mangez & Vanden Broeck, 2020). “Education and training can only contribute to growth and job-​creation if learning is focused on the knowledge, skills and competences to be acquired by students (learning outcomes) through the learning process, rather than on completing a specific stage or on time spent in school,” communicated the Commission to its member states already in 2012. Such disapproval echoed a statement from 1995, where it was made clear that while “reliance on a single institution to build up employability is an increasingly unsatisfactory option, people cannot be left to fend for themselves either. The indications are that it is by being positioned in a co-​operative network that people will be best served in educational terms.” The network-​run projectification that Europe funds and thus promotes under its Erasmus+​banner is nothing if not the globe-​spanning implementation of its openly asserted frustration with education’s formal institutions. The same dissatisfaction pervades the recent history of educational technology. Ever since the widespread diffusion of mass media, every technological aid has been touted as a new solution to bridge the gap between the school class and society at large. Whether it was radio or TV, computers or the Internet, the promise has always been to bring back the outside world into the classroom, with the often not even implicit ambition of thus revolutionizing an instruction mode declared broken and obsolete (cf. Cuban, 1986). As Audrey Watters (2021, p. 11) has recently hinted, each of these promises carried teleological assumptions about where education is inevitably heading: a future that is “more technological, more ‘data-​fied’, more computerized, more automated.” Implied in these lofty prognoses is the same dissatisfaction with school already pictured earlier: The classroom is too secluded from the world to allow for learning skills that really matter, and its heavily institutionalized character lacks the flexibility necessary for life in contemporary society. Much like the edu-​projects funded by the European Union, the advent of educational platforms takes such unhappiness with school even a step further,

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    399 by effectively offering a distinct organizational modus (cf. Stark & Pais, 2021), capable of bypassing the requirement of physical co-​presence within a classroom. With the help of online video instruction, perhaps aided by artificially intelligent personalization algorithms and the like, they openly aim to break down the classroom’s walls, if not to substitute for school all together. As a Californian ed tech start-​up, egregiously named Outschool, has been promising: School’s out. By now this refrain should sound eerily familiar. The old is pushed out and expected to make room for new and brighter futures. It should not surprise, then, that much of the tragedy we have outlined in this chapter—​school’s expulsion of the family context and the subsequent, uninvited return of the household dressed up as class differences that disturb the classroom—​can be expected to repeat itself within education’s more novel organizational forms. The unwanted, exorcised school always returns. How that happens is a fully unexplored terrain, waiting for further sociological research. Some contours are easily visible: the differences that characterize schools’ highly specific mode of instruction seem to linger on, despite (if indeed not because of) all organizational and pedagogical novelty. Even when reducing instruction to interaction with a faceless, glowing screen, platforms cannot but perpetuate the role distribution between teacher and pupil institutionalized by schools. Even in projects that let the boundaries between education and society implode, somebody or something is expected to take the teacher’s role toward others who are expected to learn. Similarly, the distinction between instruction and evaluation, this most basic difference structuring all that is taught in school, always returns. Maybe in an unexpected, reversed order, as in the transnational projects funded by Europe, where an ex-​ante evaluation always precedes the actual instruction (Vanden Broeck, 2020); maybe in the shape of automated correction systems or byzantine learning analytics. Either way, escaping the unity of this distinction, first established by modern school education (Luhmann, 1992), between education stricto sensu and the accompanying selection (who did better, who did worse), seems impossible. One wonders if the Serresian metaphor of a parasite covers this phenomenon entirely. Without a doubt, the notion highlights brilliantly the incredible tenacity of that which the desire for system(at)ic order treats as unwanted and hence seeks to banish. But who is whose parasite in this educational symbiosis? Who is leeching off whom? Is the difference as asymmetrical as the notion seems to evoke? Is there not something more at play in this account of the crystallization of distinctly shaped contexts for instruction occurring within the global education system? What the metaphor offers in visceral spectacle, it seems to lack in evolutionary perspective. It appears less suitable to draw how education’s past and recent history is as much the birth tale of new organization types and their societal trajectory, as it is a return of the repressed. Perhaps then the uncanny reappearance is less a parasite, but an atavism, a return of traits we thought (or hoped) to be lost along society’s long evolutionary path? Alas, that, too, only covers part of the phenomena. A snake suddenly has legs again, a horse’s toes grow back, and somebody might grow an extra row of nipples. But the perdurance of differences in upbringing throughout school education is not a one-​off throwback, an odd curiosity that strikes unpredictably. Nor should it be expected that scholastic

400   Pieter Vanden Broeck differences will rear their heads only once in a while to shake up newer forms of education. The past’s presence seems as durable as it is unasked for. Even switching from Serres’s parasitology to Jacques Derrida’s (1994) hauntology, the evolutionary mechanism envisaged here is not fully fathomed. Some pasts may very well haunt the present from beyond their grave. But in order to resurrect as a ghost, one first needs to die—​and the household never really disappeared as a site for education. Nor did school for that matter. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, in turn, purportedly spoke of ducks to portray how some enduring pasts refuse to die (Eckermann 1852, p. 325). Like a diving duck, the past might disappear for a while below the surface. But it always turns up again, alive and kicking, and typically not where expected. This bucolic imagery of waterplay, however, fails to fully satisfy, too. For it lacks the bewilderment and tension inherent in the process of change discussed in this chapter. The Italian imbarazzo might offer a final solace. Its double meaning, largely absent in English, covers both the sense of being an obstacle or hinder (essere d’imbarazzo) and the more familiar state of perplexity or uneasiness (essere in imbarazzo). The word identifies as much the source of nuisance that impedes a normal course of events, as the state of shame we might wish to bestow on it. When dealing with the boisterous novelty of learning platforms and the like, one might feel tempted to speak of embarrassing novelties, so as to highlight how the new seldom lives up to its promises to outdo the past. But perhaps it makes more sense to speak of pasts that get in the way of the new, that indeed embarrass. By refusing to disappear, the past is obstructing the novelty of the present to fully assert itself and thus always embarrassing it, as it were. Such talk of embarrassed novelty should not be taken as a negation or unwillingness to acknowledge the newness of the organizational changes I have outlined earlier. Transnational projects are not simple perpetuations of what Guy Vincent (1982) once dubbed the forme scolaire and neither are digital learning platforms. The specificity of these new educational forms cannot be fully grasped, however, if one does not observe how they always incorporate and are unsettled by the past they fervently seek to dismiss.

Acknowledgments This work was supported by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-​ Curie Action (MSCA) Morphogenesis (Grant ID 101032759). For their valuable remarks and suggestions, I am most grateful to Giancarlo Corsi, Eric Mangez, David Stark, and Gita Steiner-​Khamsi.

Notes 1. Or perhaps more accurate: a shell hard as steel (cf. Baehr, 2001). Luhmann’s (1996, p. 196) assessment of this Weberian imagery shows the direct lineage between the two oeuvres: “Max Weber had started this in a certain way when he spoke of value conflicts, life orders and tragic problems or of bureaucracy acting like a steel casing. Weber was himself involved in

The Morphogenesis of Education in a Global Context    401 a pessimist assessment of rationality with the assumption that bureaucracy was also everywhere, in the press, in the parties, in all organisations. But this must of course be formulated differently at the end of this century than at the end of the previous century and hung on a much broader and also more abstract theoretical framework, that is the only possibility.” 2. Cf. Luhmann (1987, p. 177): Socialisation “is not simply a transfer of conformity patterns, but the constantly through communication reproduced alternative of conformity or deviation, adaptation or resistance.” 3. On the end(lessness) of education and its relationship with career formation, see also Giancarlo Corsi (1999, 2020). 4. On the growing discontent this role distribution creates and the resulting surge in homeschooling, see Alice Tilman and Eric Mangez (2021). About the often paradox attribution of responsibility that comes along with the uneven role distribution between school and parents, see Hanne Knudsen and Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen (2014). As to the competition that school education increasingly faces from other societal spheres—​in addition to family life, that is—​see Corsi (2021): Because the labor market and mass media increasingly project career paths entirely foreign to the trajectories set out by formal education, the question arises how schooling should navigate this uneasy coexistence. 5. Note that speaking of equal opportunity, rather than of equality, or the more recent talk of “inclusive education” does not discredit Luhmann’s assertion in any way, since what is at stake in these practices is not at all the acknowledgement of difference as such, but again rather its neutralization. 6. For an elaborate and knowledgeable comparison between the oeuvre of Serres and Luhmann, see Benedikt Melters (2016). As the repeated mention of parasites in Luhmann’s writings already suggests, Serres’s desire to roam the indeterminate non-​place “in front of ” difference, rather than to resolve its ambiguity, need not necessarily be at odds with a Luhmannian interest in the various processes of “necessification” populating our social world, as Melters also concludes, but may very well complement it.

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chapter 19

Redrawing W hat C ou nts as Educ at i on The Impact of the Global Early Childhood Education Program on German Kindergarten Christine Weinbach

Introduction This chapter is interested in the long-​term historical transformations in institutionalized early childhood education in Germany. These institutions, which operated for centuries at the margins of the formal education system, were gradually, and only relatively recently, incorporated into the core of the German education system. In the course of this development, the global program of early childhood education (ECE) replaced a system that privileged the simulation of familial environments over pedagogical achievement, and it was designed from the start as a learning process that brings together pedagogical and social objectives. This chapter reconstructs this development from the perspective of Luhmann’s systems theory. In contrast to conventional understandings of his work, Luhmann’s conception of autopoietic and self-​referential systems does not assume a world of self-​ sufficient, indivisible units. Rather, Luhmann urges a correction of “that obliquity of social theory that arises when one considers only the autopoietic dynamics of function systems” (Luhmann, 1997c, p. 778). Thus, the “differentiation of operatively closed function systems” remains incomprehensible without systematic consideration of the “establishment of their environmental relations within society” (Luhmann, 1997c, p. 779; Schimank, 2015; Schimank & Volkmann, 1999, p. 31). This essay focuses on the constitutive dependence of the self-​referential education system on the political. Accordingly, the latter goes beyond providing educational organizations with the necessary resources of money, personnel, and sufficient clientele. Generally binding political decisions also

Redrawing What Counts as Education    405 provide them with educational goals deemed socially relevant. The autonomy of the education system becomes apparent through the pedagogical implementation of these educational goals. My analysis of the reconstruction of institutional early childhood education necessitates a historical approach. To accomplish this, I draw on “Problems of Reflection in the System of Education” by Niklas Luhmann and Karl-​Eberhard Schorr (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000), which asserts three phases of differentiation in a self-​referential education system. Each phase is characterized by its own contingency formula: human perfection (typical of premodernity), all-​around education (late 18th century), and the ability to learn (second half of the 20th century). ECE, as I will show, was from the beginning the program of an educational process that not only refers to an individual with the ability to learn but has the ability to learn itself.

Differentiation Through Self-​R eferentiality: The Education System of the Functionally Differentiated Society Conversion of the Educational Setting to Self-​Reference According to Luhmann, self-​referential function systems are being developed with the conversion of society to a functionally differentiated form. This also applies to the education system. Premodern education understood its task as an extension of the family and therefore defined its subject matter in relation to the position and activities of the household. Functional differentiation turns education into a self-​referential system: educational institutions discard elements of “politically overdetermined estate-​related education” (Stichweh, 1991, p. 82), which references societal areas outside of education, and replace them in a self-​referential process of environmental adjustment by its “own systemic imperatives” (Stichweh, 1991, p. 80). An essential building block in this process is the reinvention of the idea of the child (Aries) as a medium on which pedagogically intended forms can be imposed. The task of the educator to therefore “denature the human being” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 87) is related to the natural self-​guided learning (Selbsttätigkeit) within the subject (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 87) and no longer pertains to the child’s family background. A second essential building block here is the demand for the “education of the educator” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 97). Only a trained educator can achieve the necessary autonomy from a stratified society’s expectations, thereby focusing exclusively on the encouragement of the self-​guided subject’s natural urge to become educated (Roessler, 1978, p. 631). Education is thus founded on a relationship between the educated teacher

406   Christine Weinbach and the self-​guided subject to be taught. This active “reshaping of ‘means’ taken from the environment” by adapting the means “to the needs of the system” (Stichweh, 1991, p. 79) leads teachers to develop their own “self-​specification” (Stichweh, 1991, p. 80) of a teaching environment less affected by interference from external societal conditions. In other words, educated teachers, as they develop their methodology and content, refer to their intention to educate their pupils.

Pedagogical Goals of the Education System The education system removes the teaching setting from its social and political context and places it firmly in the pedagogical sphere. In the interaction between the educated teacher and the self-​guided pupil, education seeks to produce a personal environment that works for the new society (Luhmann, 2017, p. 805). It is about the realignment of educational goals. For this to succeed, the education system had to detach itself from its outward orientation toward family households and develop a self-​referential attitude toward a functionally differentiated society. To do this, it developed three environmental relations, or more precisely, “system references” (Luhmann, 1997a, p. 757) that it had to bring into agreement for its own sake. In the first system reference, “function,” the education system relates to society as a whole and strives to produce members who meet society’s requirements. For the second system reference, “performance,” the education system identifies other social systems and forms relationships of performance with them; for example, it hopes to supply the economic system with employable labor. The nonidentity of function and performance exerts pressure on the system to adapt in response, which becomes the third system reference of “reflection” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 60): The education system thus develops its own perspective on the world and distinguishes itself as a (total) system from the (total) environment. This leads to the emergence of the reflection theory called pedagogy. However, pedagogy can only cope with the higher degrees of complexity that emerged from the education system’s new position if it deploys a contingency formula. Contingency formulas reduce a function system’s excess of possibilities by integrating its various environmental relationships into an overall concept. They are “performances of reflection that refer to the function and that, in order to do so, must control the relationship between function, performance, and reflection, and that, therefore, require reflection on the reflection, or two-​step reflection” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, pp. 67–​ 68). With the help of a contingency formula, the system “formulates . . . an articulated view of itself ” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 367). In pedagogy, therefore, a contingency formula functions as an ordering point of reference that is itself withdrawn from reflection, but that allows the education system to form a theory of reflection through which it can situate itself within a functionally differentiated society. The “microdiversity of classroom interactions” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 202) becomes the locus to which this self-​ understanding refers: Classroom interactions form the object around which the reflective work of pedagogy revolves. From this point, the education system locates itself

Redrawing What Counts as Education    407 within the functionally differentiated society through a pedagogical definition of the complementary roles of teacher and pupil, as well as a pedagogical definition of the educational goal that a teacher should pursue.

All-​Around Education (Bildung): Pedagogy Diverges From Social Aims Luhmann and Schorr find that premodern education was already in possession of a contingency formula: perfection in the sense of a “moral completion of human nature” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 80). This formula welded together the system references of “function (completeness), performance (usefulness) and reflection (blissfulness)” by connecting them to the family household within a broader stratified society (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, pp. 79–​80). They began to come apart as family, politics, and economy functionally separated, and their divergence in terms of differentiated “orientations towards function and performance” of the education system (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 77) “necessitates in theory and in practice a new formulation of pedagogy” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 80). However, the pedagogical discourses within the German-​ speaking world of 1800 did “not seek a solution of the problem in a different balancing of the system references of function, performance and reflection, but rather” in the new contingency formula of “all-​around education (Bildung)” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 81). The problem was that by orienting itself toward the contingency formula of all-​ around education, pedagogy systematically ignored the system reference of performance (usefulness). Consequently, within the education system, it remained unclear for which society education had to be provided. A major cause of this deficit was the new pedagogy’s radical orientation toward the subject. The contingency formula of all-​around education perpetuated the figure of the self-​guided human being and the idea of “education as the fashioning of ‘inner form,’ ” which was already embedded within the contingency formula of human perfection (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 82). However, pedagogy no longer considered the goal of education to be the moral perfection of an estate-​related subject. Instead, pedagogy imagined the self-​guided subject’s relationship to the world as one structured primarily along cognitive lines. This meant that the subject would require the structuring precepts of an educational process that shaped the mind through both instruction and self-​guided engagement with scientific knowledge. The assumption that man has a natural instinct for self-​guided learning (Selbstbildung) (Roessler, 1978, p. 631) set at least two suppositions in motion: first, that the self-​guided subject seeks to know the world and to move freely on the basis of his own power of judgement; and second, that a science-​oriented education would enable him to engage with true knowledge on a self-​guided basis. This “learning process that was entirely determined by doctrine (at the universities)” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 86) was “identified with the route to self-​reliance” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 90). By this means, the educated

408   Christine Weinbach (gebildete) subject was supposed to acquire the ability to make independent judgements in situations requiring complex decision-​making (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 85). From a sociological perspective it is evident that this educational program amounted to an academically oriented grammar school for future holders of professional roles within differentiating function systems. Admittedly, the introduction of compulsory schooling for girls and boys in the principality of Palatinate-​Zweibrücken had begun by the end of the 16th century and had reached the German states by 1835 when Saxony adopted a mandatory schooling scheme. Nevertheless, such programs never envisaged a single-​track, comprehensive primary school education as a way to produce educated (gebildete) subjects. However, pedagogy ignored the fact that its concept of all-​ around education (Bildung) was restricted to a narrow scope of educational interactions tied to schools. Instead, it conceived of its pedagogical program as the “elevation of humanity in the individual” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 187). In this “new distance to the problem of the usefulness of education” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 86), education gained new independence from family-​centered education and succeeded in asserting its own identity as a self-​referential education system in the circle of function systems. However, its focus on “the subjectivity of the human being” did not indicate “for which society people are to be educated” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 18), because pedagogy teleologically derived its educational program from the self-​guided nature of the individual subject (Treml, 2002, p. 654). This development superimposed the societal function of the education system upon the performance relationships that it had long maintained with other function systems (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 92). Pedagogy did not recognize that the performance relationships of the education system to other function systems were based on educational goals set by means of generally binding decisions of the state (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 120). State-​mandated educational goals, which had to be managed and implemented by the schools, remained pedagogically indeterminate.

Dependence and Autonomy: State Performances for the Education System Organizational Formation and Full Inclusion Through State Performances The state of school education in the German states was thus contradictory. On one hand, with the introduction of compulsory schooling that occurred between the late 17th and early 19th centuries, a large part of the population was gradually included into instruction. On the other hand, only a fraction of this group was ultimately included in an

Redrawing What Counts as Education    409 all-​around education program. This had to do with the education system’s fundamental dependence on state services. Unlike the political and the economic system, processing symbolically generalized communication media as power respective money, the self-​demarcation of the education system against other social systems took place at an organizational level: The differentiation (Ausdifferenzierung) of the education system into an independently functional sector of society was “organizationally carried by schools” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 69). Only those educational interactions that took place within this particular institutional setting were localized within the functionally specified education system. The resulting break with “the immediacy of family life” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 89) facilitated education’s self-​referential approach and its demarcation from external systems (Luhmann, 2002, p. 128), and this permeated the entire school system. The internal differentiation of the education system, on the other hand, functioned by means of “the possibility of differentiating participating systems” in universities, namely, school types, school classes, and school careers “from lower to higher classes or schools” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 161). Some schools in the emergent system followed pedagogically based all-​around education programs, while most others sought to educate their students to become obedient and industrious subjects under the influence of external references such as religion and rule. One reason for this was that the differentiation of the education system was based on prerequisites that it could not itself provide. Only the state could provide “effective organization potential” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 82), but it was unable to do so without an egoistic interest in the education system’s performance. As early as the 16th century, the early modern state was oriented toward the common good formula and saw itself as an interventionist and productive state (Stichweh, 1991, pp. 154–​231). Motivated by a mercantilist state model, it set its sights on improving the working capacity and obedience of its subjects (Kaufmann, 2003, p. 152). In the 18th century, the Prussian state promoted a differentiated school system, wherein the Gymnasium (grammar school) was expected to develop loyal civil servants, and the Volksschule (one-​class primary school) was to create pious and industrious subjects. The varying conditions of the institutional frameworks of the different types of schools, with their universally binding mandates, exercised an influence on classroom education.

Relevance of Educational Goals to Society Through State Target Setting Diligence and Piety Through One-​Class Primary School Education (Volksschule) When the Prussian state was establishing compulsory schooling in 1717 for children who could not be educated privately, institutionalized education was still oriented toward the contingency formula of perfection. The Prussian state grounded its primary

410   Christine Weinbach schools in the formats of classroom interaction used in the confessional sexton schools and placed them under the control of the municipalities (Titze, 1973, p. 16). Instruction in the catechism, Bible reading and singing religious songs served the religious legitimization of its authority (Geißler, 2013, pp. 94–​101). To improve the work skills of Prussian subjects, basic knowledge of arithmetic and useful handicrafts such as knitting were taught. Teaching responsibilities that were usually the domain of local priests were gradually granted to former soldiers or full-​time craftsmen, who often had only rudimentary knowledge. Instruction mostly consisted of having students memorize and recite learning content without understanding it. This program of instruction, which persisted throughout the early 18th century, continued through to late 19th-​century Prussia, under the consistent aim of stratifying education by class (Titze, 1973, p. 193). The proletariat was taught in primary schools “to willingly submit to predetermined relations of rule” (Titze, 1973, p. 174). Thus, well into the 19th century, the state continued to keep primary schools trapped in “style prescriptions” (Luhmann, 2000, p. 120), shaped by the earlier contingency formula of perfection: The pedagogy of the mid-​19th century education, at least of the lower classes, was still, “in the last analysis, an issue of religion” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 75). Primary school teachers such as Adolf Diesterweg, however, protested against the state’s educational policy, and in keeping with the spirit of the modern concept of education, demanded that the lower classes be educated for “self-​guided learning, self-​ determination and self-​government’ (Titze, 1973, p. 155). The fact that Diesterweg also perceived all-​around education for the lower classes as a reliable means of containing social unrest illustrates the helplessness of a pedagogy whose educational program lacked a social educational goal. By contrast, the education prescribed by the Prussian state for its prospective primary school teachers was based on real conditions of social differentiation, and consistently on Romans 13:1, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God” (quoted in Titze, 1973, p. 192).

All-​Around Education in Grammar School Education (Gymnasium) Pedagogical and state views also diverged with regard to grammar school education. The Prussian state intended the Gymnasium to prepare the sons of the nobility and the higher bourgeoisie for later university attendance through intellectual and scientific instruction, ultimately to launch their careers as civil servants (van Ackeren et al., 2015, p. 18). Accordingly, “the standardisation of educational qualifications and the creation of conditions for professional usability in the higher civil service” began to be regulated by the state in 1788 and were enforced across the board by 1834 (Thiel, 2008, p. 212). By contrast, pedagogy aimed to promote “the intellectual development of its pupils with the means of science” in grammar school education (Roessler, 1961, p. 292). According to the pedagogical perspective, the educator “does not have to inquire about what the adult human being is going to do with these powers” (Roessler, 1961, p. 279). The various domains of instruction did not constitute separate subjects, which only happened later (Roessler, 1961, p. 316), and the teacher at grammar school saw himself as

Redrawing What Counts as Education    411 a “member of the academic profession” who “participate[d]‌in the learned discourse of the time with his scholarly publications” (Thiel, 2008, p. 216). However, over the course of the 19th century, the state began to force performance-​based recruitment of its civil service by means of year-​based classes, subject-​related grades and certificates. Pedagogy experienced these targets as external to its concept of all-​around education (Luhmann, 2002, p. 282). When school reform throughout the German Empire of the late 19th century systematized the national school system in such a way as to explicitly tie schooling to the needs of the highly industrialized German economy for the first time (Ringer, 1987, p. 2), educational intention (in the sense of all-​around education) and selection requirements (in the sense of meaningful certificates for careers) began to drift even further apart within the classroom. Within the classroom, career-​relevant performance goals came to the fore, displacing the goal of general education and leading to an “emptying” of the concept of all-​around education (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 93).

System Autonomy: Dealing With Constraints Luhmann writes that the “continuing administrative state dependence of schools” makes it difficult to “recognise the functional autonomy of the education system” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 146). Admittedly, the pedagogy of the self-​referentially constructed education system relied on self-​generated building blocks: the educated educator, the self-​referential subject, pedagogy, and a contingency formula with “style regulations for the system’s determinative performances” (Luhmann, 2000, p. 120). However, the education system’s self-​referential architecture only became possible by means of state power. The state expresses this power by providing the education system with necessary organizational resources through generally binding decisions and by ensuring a sufficient number of pupils. These decisions set societal educational goals for educational organizations, resulting in a close interdependency between politics and education. In the early 19th century, the political system used the educational performance of classroom interactions to further its own objectives and, therefore, created framework conditions that partly enabled (grammar school) and partly inhibited (primary school) the rearrangement of the education system to self-​referential foundations. However, this newly emergent pedagogy reflected exclusively on the self-​referentiality of the education system. Luhmann and Schorr identify profound deficits in this reflection, which had important consequences for the system’s autonomy and its self-​control as a function system within a functionally differentiated society. They understand system autonomy here not “as the absence of constraints, but rather as a form of dealing with constraints” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 60). Autonomy, therefore, is possible in an education system that takes on and integrates state goals for instruction in its pedagogical methodologies, not one that has absolute freedom from state targets. On the contrary, institutions in whose services the state has no further interest occupied a marginal position within the educational system because they lack society’s mandate.

412   Christine Weinbach

Institutionalised Early Childhood Education The State’s Lack of Interest in Early Childhood Education Institutionalized early childhood education did not attract the interest of state institutions in Germany until the second half of the 20th century and therefore was located at the fringe of the education system. The German states of the 19th century explicitly rejected the break with family life represented by the institutional education of young children; indeed, the General Land Law for the Prussian States of 1794 vested mothers with the responsibility for taking care of their children until the age of 4 (Reyer, 1987b, p. 257). Progressive associations of primary school teachers in the mid-​19th century unsuccessfully demanded the establishment of early childhood schools as a preparatory stage for a reformed school system (Franke-​Meyer, 2011, p. 90). The German states, however, beginning in the 1820s, came to see the institutionalized education of young children merely as an effective means of combating the threat of revolution (Erning, 1987, p. 27). The ruling powers were more interested in the educational program of the Englishman Samuel Wilderspin (1824) and his “objective of an unreserved recognition and respect for the given conditions” (Erning, 1987, p. 26). Accordingly, the German states encouraged private initiatives to create such institutions by founding “associations of private charity” (Wasmuth, 2010, pp. 35–​36). Thus, a type of voluntary early childhood education emerged in which classroom interactions resembled those of one-​class primary schools and implemented the taxonomy of the contingency formula of perfection. An alternative vision of kindergarten, which was founded at the same time but was largely rejected by the state, promoted, like grammar school, a program of all-​around education. However, the kindergarten model remained a minor phenomenon in the landscape of institutionalised early childhood education (3.3.2).

Early Childhood School and Kindergarten in the 19th Century Education Leading to Moral Perfection In 1835, the Protestant pastor Georg Heinrich Theodor Fliedner applied Wilderspin’s model to found the first German school for young children (Erning, 1987, p. 33). Fliedner identified the neglect of young children as a sin, as a violation of the divine order. He saw strict religious education as the most appropriate means for the moral improvement of these children and their families (Erning, 1987, p. 34). By adhering to the outdated contingency formula of perfection, namely, moral “perfection according to the stipulations of the estate” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 104), the “consciousness of belonging to the

Redrawing What Counts as Education    413 class of the poor . . . should be consolidated” (Reyer, 1987b, p. 254). Fliedner’s method for training the mistresses for his early childhood school was thus based on the “form of the spiritual office of deaconess” (Erning, 1987, p. 36). The lessons taught at such schools resembled those seen in one-​class primary school: religious instruction, rote “memorisation of prayers, religious songs and sayings” (Erning, 1987, p. 34), and instruction in discipline, cleanliness, order, and industriousness (Wasmuth, 2010, p. 71). Play was imbued with a moral component, for example, the “exercise-​like movement of the body,” which strengthened the limbs, made them limber, and accustomed “the children to attention, order and obedience” (Wasmuth, 2010, p. 73).

Education Leading to General Human Formation At nearly the same time, Friedrich Froebel’s alternative vision of kindergarten argued that “the task and goal of the kindergarten . . . is solely to promote and educate the child’s natural talents” (Reyer, 2015, p. 42): the child’s independent play and inner striving for a coherent life could express its cognitive relationship to the world, in which the “inner and outer” spheres came into contact (Wasmuth, 2010, p. 90). Science-​based gifts, meant to shape and support play between the pedagogically enlightened mother and the self-​referential child, were intended to support the child’s efforts in an educational way (Erning, 1987, p. 37). Froebel called this educational setting the kindergarten. The institution of “kindergarten” was actually a school for mothers that intended to bring the educational setting of the kindergarten into families: trained kindergarten teachers, with a high level of general education, led play circles attended by bourgeois or aristocratic mothers and their children for a few hours a week (Wasmuth, 2010, pp. 35, 38). The kindergarten gathered all of the self-​referential building blocks of the education system: the educated educators (the kindergarten teacher and the mother), the self-​ guiding child, and a pedagogy oriented toward the contingency formula of all-​around education. Unlike the early childhood schools informed by Wilderspin’s theories, Froebel’s kindergarten concept was either ignored by the state or became the object of its hostile attentions; after the failed revolution of 1848, for example, the kindergarten was denigrated as a socialist system and correspondingly banned (Franke-​Meyer, 2011, p. 116). Consequently, its institutions found comparatively limited purchase in Germany at this time.

Family Childhood for All As the national welfare state emerged in the German Empire in the late 19th century, this institutional landscape—​which was differentiated according to the contingency formulas of perfection and all-​around education—​underwent a dramatic transformation toward standardization. In the process, institutionalized early childhood education was finally pushed to the margins. Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the new German Empire, reformulated the social question as the workers’ question (Kaufmann, 2003, p. 260). Bismarck conceived of “the

414   Christine Weinbach workers as a uniform ‘status’ or ‘class’ and made “the improvement of their overall situation the goal of state action” (Kaufmann, 2003, p. 272). Child labor and women’s work became restricted, and the male family breadwinner became the norm, even for the lower social classes (Gottschall & Schröder, 2013). The notion of a private childhood for all social classes came within reach, and this idea began to be expressed by teachers, doctors, and psychologists in parenting guides (Hoffer-​Mehlmer, 2003). Wherever the realization of this family model appeared to be endangered in spite of the employment-​based social security system, the public benefits system intervened on a case-​by-​case basis. The passage of the Reich Law on Youth Welfare in 1922 and its implementation in 1924 facilitated a systematic focus on early childhood education (Konrad, 2004, pp. 113, 127). Building on the new idea of a private childhood for all, kindergarten came to be seen as a “real nursery” where the child could “live and act entirely according to its own laws” (Weiß, member of the Reich School Conference 1921, quoted by Wasmuth, 2010, p. 245). Due to the kindergarten’s function as a surrogate for the family, the state began to renounce specific educational objectives and granted pedagogical discretion to the kindergartens. In spite of the new legislative framework for youth welfare, the training of kindergarten teachers remained pedagogically modest (Wasmuth, 2010, p. 138). In the context of these developments, the Volkskindergarten, which had existed since 1874, served as a prototype for denominational early childhood schools. Developed by Fröbel’s student Henriette Schrader-​Breymann, the Volkskindergarten dispensed with Fröbel’s ideas in favor of the Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s idea of the family living room as a model for bringing together the various elements essential to human education. The Volkskindergarten attempted “to ‘de-​institutionalise’ public child education by incorporating family and domestic elements” (Reyer, 1987b, p. 280), and its all-​day opening hours catered to the lower social classes (Reyer, 1987a, p. 52). A Volkskindergarten schedule incorporated games, gymnastics, music and singing, gardening and domestic activities, each grouped around an item emblematic of the month (Wasmuth, 2010, p. 142). Soon after, denominational providers of early childhood schools adopted the Volkskindergarten as a model for their own activities, and educational programs that simulated the family home became widespread. Long rows of benches were replaced by a “loosened arrangement of individual tables,” and the “toy cupboards” became “more and more accessible to the children,” with “functional corners,” and the “floor became ‘a play area’ ” (Reyer, 1987a, p. 70). This coincided with the gradual diminution of religious influence on education (Wasmuth, 2010, p. 239). After the ravages of World War II and the subjugation of all levels of society to National Socialist imperatives, the Federal Republic of Germany, formed in 1949, returned to the moral and institutional imperatives established by the Weimar Republic more than two decades earlier. Unlike the German Democratic Republic, where the government directed the entire education system, child and youth welfare institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany resumed responsibility for kindergarten education, which was regarded as a substitute for the family (Neumann, 1987, pp. 102–​103). The after-​effects of the authoritarian education imposed by the National Socialist system

Redrawing What Counts as Education    415 remained perceptible (Neumann, 1987, p. 96). Yet, as had long been the case previously, the “leading contemporary pedagogy, the humanities,” had “little enriching effect on institutionalised early childhood education” (Wasmuth, 2010, p. 240). The family-​like kindergarten was intended to “closely follow the protective and sheltering family upbringing and to create a ‘pedagogical resistance’ to the ‘hothouse climate of the modern world’ . . . ‘which presses the child to prematurely differentiate their holistic response to the impression of the environment’ ” (Neumann, 1987, p. 102). This program, which remained family-​oriented, was only called into question when the West German state began to take an interest in the educational achievements of young children for reasons of economic policy. Since then, kindergartens have gradually been incorporated into the (West) German education system. The driving force behind this development originates in the political system of a global society.

Redrawing What Counts as Education: Globalization and Education Political Imperative: Education for a Rapidly Changing Society Global political interest in the performance of the education system arose due to a paradigm shift in economic policy initiated by the late-​20th-​century collapse of international regimes, such as the Bretton Woods system, which had been under US leadership. These regimes had provided a protective bulwark for Western European nation states, which after World War II had operated within a liberal framework that allowed them to “take advantage of the international division of labour while protecting their citizens from the consequences of the ‘creative destruction’ of an unleashed capitalism” (Scharpf, 1999, p. 112). The collapse of these regimes, however, led, among other things, to higher volatility in labor markets. In the 1970s, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) therefore began proposing an agenda to its member states to improve the responsiveness of companies as well as the labor force to the new demands of the dynamic global economy. To this end, the OECD adopted the concept of “lifelong learning,” developed by the eponymous UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, and integrated it in the context of employment policy. Since then, lifelong learning has been used as an instrument to improve the adaptability of the labor force with respect to the varying demands of the dynamic labor market. The “national school systems . . . throughout the world were declared to be one of the most important potentials for social development” (Adick, 1992, p. 348). They were tasked with educating the individuals of the OECD member states for a “rapidly changing society” (CERI, 1973, p. 18). When the Iron Curtain fell at the end of the 1980s, and the world economy shifted into gear, the OECD boosted its economic and employment policy orientation and started initiating a

416   Christine Weinbach second implementation phase of its education policy reform proposals (Papadopoulos, 1994, p. 202). Once the concept of recurrent education became a component of lifelong learning, this meant that the entire population were to be educated as members of a rapidly and permanently changing society. Socially homogeneous educational careers were prised open, and institutionalized education was meant to begin at an early age. Over the course of this development, the education system formed its new contingency formula “ability to learn,” and now “every process of the system exists under this condition of self-​reference” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 97): Now both the individual and the educational process were supposed to become capable of learning. The global ECE program, therefore, is designed from the start as an educational process that incorporates the ability to learn. It constantly reassesses its educational goals, its institutions, and its educational activities, with the help of modern monitoring instruments.

Reconfiguring What Counts as Early Childhood Education The Young Child in the Context of Recurrent Education Education policy in the late 20th century was long able to rely on forms of institutionalised performance linkage between the educational and political systems. At the level of society worldwide (Stichweh, 2007), global organizations such as UNESCO or the OECD function as one mechanism of structural coupling between politics and education. These organizations’ programs tend to be a product of the systematic involvement of expert scholars and professionals. Abstract yet specialized approaches enrich political objectives, anticipating the inherent logic of the addressed social systems and increasing their connectivity within the national contexts of reception (Walgenbach, 2000, p. 181). This interconnectedness also helps to understand why policy reform proposals for early childhood education from UNESCO or the OECD are predicated on a redefinition of the self-​referential child as a fundamental building block of the education system. In the 1970s, the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), for example, emphasized the “crucial role played by the events and the environment which affect the child in this period,” which has been undisputed since the work of the psychologists Jean Piaget and Benjamin Bloom (CERI, 1975, p. 10). Many years later, the OECD noted that modern neuroscience corroborated this perspective: “These reciprocal learning interactions afford children ways to define who they are, what they can become and how and why they are important to other people” (OECD, 2006, p. 193). In the mid-​1970s, the OECD based its educational policy recommendations on this new image of a subject who was both self-​guided and susceptible to environmental influences, according to which recurrent education, in the sense of an “educational service available to all, at every age, wherever and whenever required” (CERI, 1973, p. 6),

Redrawing What Counts as Education    417 should begin in early childhood (CERI, 1975, p. 5). Recurrent education presupposed the dismantling of social segmentation in schools and an emphasis on more equality of opportunity, more flexibility in personal, vocational, and professional development, and a closer alignment with the labor market. Early childhood education was given a social mandate related to the subsequent stages of the child’s life, beginning with school. To do justice to the child’s natural capacity for self-​guided learning (Selbsttätigkeit), two established traditions in early childhood education were put into productive dialogue: While preschool (as found in, for example, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) primarily promoted the child’s intellectual and cognitive development (CERI, 1975, p. 10), the holistic-​social pedagogical tradition (as found in Germany and Scandinavia) focused on the social and emotional development of the child and its ability to cultivate self-​guided learning (CERI, 1975, p. 10). CERI proposed an educational program with a “twofold orientation: that of adaptation and that of emancipation” to enable individuals to cope with their open future in a rapidly changing society (CERI, 1973, p. 47).

The Adaptive Educational Process: Shifting to Reflexivity The implementation of an educational program related to a rapidly changing society necessitates the constant review of whether these measures are appropriate. For this to succeed, the educational process must itself develop the ability to learn. It must abandon any form of a priori anchoring that traps it within a first-​order level of observation.1 In the German context, all-​around education in grammar schools, grounded in an ineluctable reference to science (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 97), culminated in university education as the ultimate form of human self-​reliance. With the shift to recurrent education, the educational process detached itself from this objective and abandoned the notion that education ever reaches a terminal point; in other words, the educational process was no longer based on accessing an external system of science (in the sense of impartial, empirical knowledge of the world); from now on, education is supposed to focus on cognitive learning models entwined with the expectations of performance-​ related function systems. Structurally, the reflexive nature of the educational process means that the disparity between the organizational and interactional levels has grown: Educational organization gains major independence from educational interaction. Education now deals with the expectations of performance-​related function systems in a learning manner by taking up these expectations and incorporating them according to its own logic. To this end, the performance requests of the other function systems are translated at the organizational level into pedagogically based educational goals, and classroom interaction becomes subject to control mechanisms, such as the contingent curriculum, instruction-​bound personnel, and variable quality and performance requirements (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 108). These control mechanisms are intended to ensure adherence to currently valid educational goals.2 Thus, according to Luhmann and Schorr, the ability to learn does not mean “an unrestrained willingness to conform”; instead, it integrates constraints that provide direction to the educational process (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 101). The education system articulates this direction, within the context

418   Christine Weinbach of global programs, as the “[smooth] transition to a career,” an objective that holds relevance across all school forms (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 104). The institutionalization of the education process also affects the perception of the self-​ guided subject. Thanks to a new medium of education, the life course (Luhmann, 1997b), the subject is observed, in terms of his or her past and future, without the assumption of “a teleological structure” (Luhmann, 1997b, p. 18). The contingent life course is left open for manifold future possibilities (Luhmann, 1997b, p. 26) for which the learning subject is to be prepared educationally. In the classroom, therefore, teachers focus less on imparting factual knowledge, favoring instead approaches “that lead more to learning how to learn than to learning information” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 99). Following the integration of early childhood education into the lifelong learning model, which is organized as a self-​guided and self-​referential process, the structural conditions of adaptive education also prevail: the global ECE program is designed as a process that anticipates the preschooler’s next career stage.

On the Learning Ability of the Educational Processes of Early Childhood Education Early Childhood Education: School-​Oriented Educational Program, with the Ability to Learn Global political interest in ECE has led to the initiation of its implementation in various nation states, which is still ongoing (Garvis et al., 2018; Phillipson & Garvis, 2019). Global organizations act as the designers of standards and are also involved in their diffusion through the creation of reciprocal observation contexts (Schäfer, 2005, p. 83). UNESCO’s International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) of 2011 laid the groundwork for institutionalized ECE. ISCED places ECE at the lowest level (Level 0) out of 10 consecutive education program, followed by primary education, ASO (UNESCO, 2012, p. 21). All 10 are realized in targeted educational interactions between teacher and student, whereby a “providing agency . . . facilitates a learning environment, and a method of instruction through which communication is organised” (UNESCO, 2012, p. 7). Limitations on what is to be learned are set through interlinked certificates (UNESCO, 2012, p. 8). Accordingly, the ECE program explicitly excludes institutions that “provide only childcare (supervision, nutrition and health)” and sees the essential difference in the pedagogical qualifications of staff (UNESCO, 2012, p. 27). Going beyond basic childcare, ECE aims “to develop socio-​emotional skills necessary for participation in school and society” (UNESCO, 2012, p. 26).

Global Guidelines for the Adaptive Education Process: Observation as a Pedagogical Instrument The OECD has followed up on ISCED with its Starting Strong policy series (2001–​2021). To enable different national systems to implement the ECE program as an adaptive and

Redrawing What Counts as Education    419 purposeful education process, the OECD encourages governments to use monitoring tools (OECD, 2015, pp. 172–​189). These tools are meant to force a constant reexamination of educational interactions, enabling the alignment of both school expectations and children’s needs; in other words, such interactions should become adaptive. Essentially, there are two types of such tools: the first type of monitoring tool is intended to ensure organizational learning capacity and goal orientation through the test-​ based examination of structural quality (spatial equipment, safety standards, staffing ratios, etc.) and process quality (qualification of staff, organization of work processes, implementation of the curriculum, quality of specialist-​child interaction, etc.). The second type of monitoring tool assesses the learning ability and goal orientation of the professionals’ educational activities, such as through observation methods, tests, or screenings, which can help assess the development of learning in the individual child to encourage its development according to his or her needs. The OECD has presented a comparison of different monitoring tools and countries’ experiences with them (OECD, 2015, pp. 172–​189).

Person Categories of the Adaptive Educational Interaction in Early Childhood Education The institutionalization of adaptive educational interactions, which was done with the aid of monitoring instruments, creates specific person-​related expectations. Many German institutions of early childhood education use observation, portfolios, and learning stories as monitoring instruments to ensure an educator’s learning attitude. These instruments have different sources (Allmann, 2014; Carr & Lee, 2001; Gelfer & Perkins, 1996) and are, in practice, combined in specific ways to complete the ECE program. Along these lines, the German Twelfth Report on Children and Youth of 2005 prescribes a method for systematically documenting children’s activities (Schulz & Cloos, 2013, p. 787), using observation sheets, checklists, or assessment scales for all ECE institutions (Schulz & Cloos, 2013, p. 790). The child’s activities and educational support are assessed in the context of the competences related to later enrolment in school (Schulz & Cloos, 2013, p. 795). In many cases, the educator capable of learning is supposed to translate his or her observation notes into learning stories for the child (Schulz & Cloos, 2013, p. 790), read them to the child, and include them in the child’s portfolio. Portfolios are systematic collections of documents that the child usually populates him-​or herself by means of artifacts that document his or her learning progress, such as pictures they have drawn or painted, or photos that show them in learning contexts. In a given situation, children know that they are being observed; their learning stories provide feedback on their developmental progress; the portfolio is usually kept within the child’s reach so that it can be reviewed frequently, whether by the child alone, together with an educator, the child’s own parents, or other children, which motivates the child to independently develop the portfolio by creating suitable documents. The active involvement of the child is meant to raise self-​awareness of “learning processes and progress as well as learning strategies” (Schulz & Cloos, 2013, p. 791). Educators who are capable of learning, as well

420   Christine Weinbach as children who are capable of learning, should regularly and systematically reflect on the consequences of their educational actions and adjust their future educational actions accordingly. In this way, they embody the expectations (Hirschauer, 2004) of an educational process capable of learning with a capacity for constant reflection and goal-​ oriented readjustment (Luhmann, 1992a, p. 103).

Conclusion This text focused on the constitutive dependence of the self-​referential education system on the performance of the political system to show that the recent redrawing of what counts as institutionalized early childhood education in Germany largely originates in the impulses of global organizations in the political system of world society. In Germany, the political system has imposed socially relevant educational goals on organizations working in the education system for centuries. However, it is only since its reorientation toward the contingency formula of the ability to learn and the accompanying institutionalization of an educational process with the ability to learn that the German education system has developed an inner-​systemic resonance capacity that allows it to take up politically defined educational goals in pedagogical terms and incorporate them into the architecture of its educational designs. This applies to institutions of early childhood education as well: The global education program ECE is designed as a learning education process that features an objective deemed socially relevant: preparing young children with the ability to learn so that they can attend school in a rapidly changing society. Within this education process that has the ability to learn, the pedagogical goal, implemented with the accompaniment of monitoring instruments, forms a control mechanism through which educational interactions are guided and formed in a processual manner. As the educational field of institutionalised early childhood education is also influenced by the contingency formula of the ability to learn, it eventually moves into the core area of the self-​referential educational system.

Acknowledgments The present work was completed in the context of my research project, “The Nursery as a Gender Political Module of the Workfare State of Functionally Differentiated Society: Assignment of Tasks and Its Implementation” at the University of Bonn, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). For this I am grateful to the DFG.

Notes 1. On the distinction between first-​and second-​order observation, see Luhmann (1992a, p. 112). 2. On reflexivity as a process, see Luhmann (1992b, pp. 68–​121).

Redrawing What Counts as Education    421

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Redrawing What Counts as Education    423 Thiel, F. (2008). Die Organisation der Bildung—​eine Zumutung für die Profession? In Y. Ehrenspeck, G. de Haan, & F. Thiel (Eds.), Bildung: Angebot oder Zumutung? (pp. 211–​228). Springer. Titze, H. (1973). Die Politisierung der Erziehung. Untersuchungen über die soziale und politische Funktion der Erziehung von der Aufklärung bis zum Hochkapitalismus. Athenäum Fischer. Treml, A. K. (2002). Evolutionäre Pädagogik—​Umrisse eines Paradigmenwechsels. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 48(5), 652–​669. UNESCO. (2012). International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011. Montreal. van Ackeren, I., Klemm, K., & Kühn, S. M. (2015). Entstehung, Struktur und Steuerung des deutschen Schulsystems: Eine Einführung (3rd ed.). Springer. Walgenbach, P. (2000). Die normgerechte Organisation. Schäffer-​Poeschel. Wasmuth, H. (2010). Kindertageseinrichtungen als Bildungseinrichtungen—​Zur Bedeutung von Bildung und Erziehung in der Geschichte der öffentlichen Kleinkinderziehung in Deutschland bis 1945. https://​publik​atio​nen.uni-​tuebin​gen.de/​xmlui/​bitstr​eam/​han​dle/​ 10900/​47814/​pdf/​kindertageseinrichtunge​n_​al​s_​bi​ldun​gsei​nric​htun​gen.pdf?seque​nce=​1

chapter 20

The Univer si t y as a World Orga ni z at i on Rudolf Stichweh

Introduction Since its beginnings around 1200, the university has never been a local or regional school; nor has it been a local or regional knowledge organization. From its start in late medieval Europe, there were authors such as the Cologne scholar and canon Alexander von Roes (ca. 1225–​1300) who defined the university as the third universal power in Christianity, standing beside the empire and the papacy (Stichweh, 1991a). Therefore, the knowledge it produced, taught, and examined, and the degrees it conferred, were of European relevance. After 1500, accompanying the rise of world empires and the migration of European colonizers and settlers with their monastic orders and churches,1 the university became a world organization. It was soon present on several continents (North America, South America, several parts of Asia). In some relevant respects, the universities were part of one global network of scholars, and the knowledge systems they built were perceived as universal knowledge systems. This chapter takes these historical circumstances as its point of departure. It focuses on the university from a sociological perspective, concentrating on its most distinguishing characteristics that explain the enormous relevance of universities in the genesis of world society. The university seems to be the best and most instructive case of a societal institution that combines a precise localization at a specific place and a belongingness and local impact in the cities where universities are established with an invariable global reach and relevance. The university is as much local as it is global,2 and the goal of the chapter is to explore and to explain how universities work on the basis of a productive use of this distinction and the tensions built into it.

The University as a World Organization    425

The Localization of the University: The University and the City The university is typically located either on a campus that has been specifically created for this purpose, in a characteristic quarter of a city that is then defined as the university quarter (e.g., the “Quartier Latin” in Paris), or in a third possibility—​especially in smaller European cities—​its buildings are to be found everywhere in the city. This third pattern is often to be found, when there are only few university buildings and most of the teaching takes place in the houses built or rented by the professors. By establishing a university in one of these three ways, it becomes strongly related to one and only one city—​very often adopting the name of the city as its name. Adopting the name of the city where it resides ties the university even more closely to it. A migration to another city is, however, possible in principle, a rare event in the history of universities.3 This spatial concentration of the university and its persistence over decades and centuries is an exceptional structure if one compares universities to organizations in other societal spheres. There are similarities in team sports, for example, where one observes strong identifications that unite cities and sports teams. But in the case of sports teams, it is unlikely that a whole city quarter will be shaped by these teams, whereas for the universities, the link to the city is usually based on more complex connections, with more visible transformations of the city space. It is not only that the university is invariably tied to the city where it was founded: parallel to it, these cities often become “university cities.” A significant part of the population of the cities are the members (students, university teachers, and many other employees) of the university. And even those citizens not tied to the university via membership often look to the university as a defining part of the identity of the city and may derive their income from activities related to it. The university localized in one of the three ways mentioned is nearly always a global institution. Over centuries, the university tradition has acted as a selective force operating against alternative interpretations that were content with local relevance. University cities are occasionally global cities by their own sociocultural centrality; in other cases, however, the university functions as the driving force for the globality of the city. This is especially true for the small or medium-​size university cities. They are mostly chosen as places for a university because they allow for a sufficient distance to the political, religious, economic, and military centers of the respective territories. This spatial separation of higher education from other societal functions by creating a city type defined by higher education is an important feature of late medieval and early modern university history. Some continuities of the functional specificity of the university city as a functional city type of its own exist even today. However, from the enormous growth of the number of universities in the 20th and 21st centuries, at some point nearly every city and every region will have a university of its own. This strengthens and sometimes weakens the

426   Rudolf Stichweh link from the city to the university. In some respects it can now be said that every “complete” city claims to build a university of its own. In other cases the regional placement of the university prevails over the claim of the biggest cities for “their” university. Then—​ and this could well be observed in the erection of new universities in England in the last 60 years—​there is a search for a good place for a campus in a regional landscape and space, and the connection to a city becomes secondary.4

The Persistence of the University It is a remarkable fact that universities, once they have been established, are nearly never closed again. In the economy most new firms only survive for a few years. The dynamics of economic systems are very much produced by this incessant circulation of new firms. It is wholly different with universities. They do not only exist for years or decades but often for hundreds of years. And there are no other institutions or organizations with which they share this remarkable quality. Clark Kerr, in his book Higher Education Cannot Escape History, published in 1994 (Kerr, 1994), presents an extraordinary statistic: He claims that in the Western world, by the end of the 20th century, there were around 75 institutions that already existed in 1520 operating “with similar functions and with unbroken histories” (Kerr, 1994, p. 45). These institutions comprise the Catholic Church, the Parliaments of the Isle of Man, of Iceland and of Great Britain, the governance structures of several Swiss cantons, the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena5—​and 61 universities (Kerr, 1994, Table 1, p. 46). Comparison with a more recent situation reveals similar findings. In the United States, in 2019/​ 2020, there were 3,982 colleges and universities (degree-​ granting postsecondary institutions) (Moody, 2021). These numbers actually represent a decline compared to the years 2012–​2013, especially in the for-​profit sector. Besides these for-​ profit institutions—​which probably present the lifecycle of economic enterprises and not of typical higher educational organizations—​the 800 small private colleges with student numbers below 1,000 are structurally endangered, as for them student fees are often the only source of income. Therefore, the long-​term stability of institutions is not guaranteed for this basic level of small academic institutions. The situation differs considerably if one looks for the most elite institutions. In the case of the United States, this elite segment is best defined by membership in the “Association of American Universities” (AAU), which was founded in 1900 by 14 universities.6 In 2021, 66 universities were members of the AAU (64 in the United States and 2 Canadian universities), of which 57 already operated as universities in 1900—​a good indicator of the stability of the core of the American university system. That is, in the 120 years between 1900 and 2021, only 9 new universities were founded that at a later point in time succeeded to become a part of the research core of the American university system. Among them, 6 belong to the campuses of the University of California (Davis, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Irvine, Santa Cruz). The other three newcomers

The University as a World Organization    427 with founding dates after 1900 are Rice (1912), Brandeis (1948), and Stony Brook (1957).7 This shows how rare it is for new universities to become significant addresses in the American university system, and how dominated the system is by institutions that have been around for a very long time. The contrast to the rapidity of organizational innovations in other sectors of American life (such as economy and religion) is, once again, enormous. One difference between European and North American Universities must be emphasized. European Universities were universal or global institutions from the start. This was clearly not the case with American universities and colleges. Although derived from European institutions, with their universal aspirations, American universities themselves were regional institutions, recruiting most of their students from regional feeder schools and regional elites.8 They always looked to the European institutions and the science and scholarship produced there. But they did not yet contribute to the production of science. Since the second half of the 19th century, great numbers of American students spent years studying in European institutions—​in fact, the best colleges and universities recruited, after 1850, their presidents and professors among those teachers and researchers that had been to Europe. Nonetheless, American institutions mostly confined themselves to a regional reach, and this was even true for the “Big Three,” Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Karabel, 2006), which clearly had a national reputation but not a nationwide recruitment of students. Only after World War I, the best American universities slowly became national institutions. This did not happen by adding new institutions. Instead, it was the elite segment of universities that now extended its reach toward the whole nation. There arose the idea of “geographic diversity” of student recruitment, and there came about the creation of “national scholarships” (in the beginning only applying to few states as recipients) and, finally, the institution of need-​blind admission was established. This is a model of admission in which the students’ financial conditions are only examined after his or her admission, implying that the university becomes responsible for finding financial aid for those students who have no means of their own. This model was extended to international students by some of the leading universities at the end of the 20th century (Karabel, 2006). In 1993, the incoming president of Yale, Rick Levin, was probably the first American university president to call his university a “world university” (Branch, 2001), and Levin meant this as a programmatic statement that still had to be realized. The concept of a “World University” here means the worldwide recruitment of students and—​as a probable consequence—​the education of leaders for many countries. Why are universities so persistent? There is a first explanation that is nearly an obvious one, based on the analysis presented up to this point. If the university is closely tied to a city, it can age and survive and coexist with the city over decades and even over hundreds of years. The connections are symbolic, financial, territorial, and inscribed into buildings, and they accumulate over time. All these are reasons why, in most cases, there is only one (significant) university in a city. For very big cities it may be different. But even then, if there is more than one university in a city, there is often a characteristic

428   Rudolf Stichweh functional differentiation between them (Harvard and MIT in Boston/​Cambridge are good examples). There is a second causal context that is often responsible for the persistence of universities. This is based on the link from the university to its alumni. For the alumni a successful academic track record and the achievement of a degree valid for national university systems become a permanent part of their biographical profile, from which may follow a motivation to invest money into “their” university to contribute to the permanent standing of their university. The accumulation of these investments builds endowments and donations, and finances territorial extensions of the university, which are strong factors for their persistence (Hansmann, 1990). This second factor immediately leads us to a third argument for persistence. Universities are either public or private institutions. But even if they are private institutions, they are nearly always “not-​for-​profit” organizations. That is decisive for longevity or persistence. Profits are a very effective mechanism for the control of organizations. If these are less profitable than other organizations, investors, after some time, will lose their patience and redirect their investments to other, more profitable institutions, limiting in this way the life span of for-​profit organizations. Not-​for-​profit organizations, on the other hand, will be able to survive for long times even under critical financial conditions. The comparisons they have to stand are mainly independent from financial criteria, and this contributes in a significant way to the longevity of universities.

The Inclusion Into the University From its beginnings, the university was an inclusive organization. In the late medieval and early modern period, it was never the institution of the most privileged strata of society. For this inclusivity, it was important that the university was closely coupled to religion and the organizations of the Christian Church, especially the monastic orders. Religion (Christianity) was the first socially inclusive function system in late medieval/​ early modern Europe (Stichweh, 2020). Therefore, the university as an organization, near to theology as science and to the life forms practiced in church organizations, in one key perspective did participate in the openness of religion to persons coming from all quarters of life. “Paupertas”/​poverty was not only a monastic ideal; it was central to the self-​description of late medieval universities. And in Europe, there was the institution of sponsorship of young men from humble or poor family backgrounds that supported them over years and sent them to university study. “Poverty” was not only a personal circumstance that in many individual cases did not prevent the access to the university. In other respects, “poverty” was a general symbol that pointed to a kind of purity near to the forms of intellectual absorption seen as a presupposition for intellectual passions and scholarship. Besides being near to the church and religion, the university was nearly nowhere a place that was attractive to the nobility. The highest stratum of European society was

The University as a World Organization    429 not known for studying at universities. Of course, a certain number of nobles opted for the study of law, and there were always some European universities—​Padova, Leiden, Göttingen, Edinburgh—​who functioned as transnational attractors for these noble students. A second option was the possibility to visit universities as part of the “Grand Tour,” as many nobles did. Those who did this spent short stays of 2–​3 months at individual universities. Then, in the 17th and 18th centuries, a new institution arose, the “academy of nobles” (Ritterakademien, académie des nobles, seminaria nobilium) that taught to members of the nobility a mix of some learned knowledge and the major practical exercises (riding, dancing, fencing) that were part of the lifestyle of nobles (Brizzi, 1976; Conrads, 1982; Stichweh, 1991b). To this double-​faced position of the university in its European development—​its openness toward the inclusion of everyone who showed some signs of being a gifted individual and the relatively weak links that connect the university to the dominant stratum of European society—​a third feature should be added. The tripartite order of the three professional faculties, which in early modern Europe came about in the medieval institution that could still be seen as part of the church, functioned as the basis of a hierarchy of three professional estates. These professional estates were thought as controlling organs of society taking care of souls and beliefs (theology), social conflicts (law), and individual and collective physical health (medicine). The university became a part of “Polizey” (the early modern policies of building social order), based on relevant knowledge systems seen as representing aspects of “Polizey.” It was not until the late 18th, early 19th-​century scientific transformation of the university into an institution dominated by the knowledge systems of the philosophical faculty that its separation from the social hierarchies of the society of estates and the tasks of social control connected to it took place.9 The new university built on the basis of the disciplines of the philosophical faculty—​ which over time even institutionalized the disciplinary model for organizing knowledge production as a paradigm for the genesis and organization of research in the professional faculties (Stichweh, 1992)—​is completely decoupled from the order of estates and strata in its societal environment. It can become inclusive in a new understanding that implies, in principle, openness for everyone who is able to fulfil intellectual demands defined by the disciplines originating in the philosophical faculty or is able to fulfil the (intellectual and practical) demands given by the professional faculties for law, medicine, theology, and other professions. It is on this basis that the modern university arose as a world organization defined again by the inclusion of ever-​growing segments of the population. The university around 1800 was inclusive in the understanding defined earlier, a potential openness to individuals coming from all stations in life. Nevertheless, during this period, it was still a very small societal institution, rarely including more than 1%–​2% of the male population of European countries for relative short stays (1–​2 years). Therefore, it might be said that the university was inclusive and exclusive at the same time. In the 200 years since then, incessant growth has become the most obvious characteristic of the university in a worldwide sense. This can be illustrated with some figures for the case of Germany. Already in 1750, the country had probably the highest number of university

430   Rudolf Stichweh visitors in Europe (at this time 150,000 of 8 million males had some university experience). In 1830, the student population present in German universities numbered 16,049 (Müller-​Benedict, 2015, p. 69). There was stagnation until 1865 when the number slightly dropped to 15,500 (Müller-​Benedict, 2015, p. 65). From there on until 1931, the numbers show a rapid growth up to 129,200 students. National Socialism and World War II brought a significant decline of the student population. The growth resumed with similar rates in the FRG and the GDR from 1945 until 1970 when the combined number of students rose to 570.000 (3.5× in the 20 years from 1950 to 1970). In the next 20 years growth was by a factor of 4 in the FRG, whereas numbers declined by 10% in the GDR. In the reunited Germany of 2000, there were 1.8 million students (3× in the 30 years from 1970 to 2000). As a resumé, it can be said that the years from 1865 to 2000 brought about the rise of mass higher education in Germany: a growth by a factor of 120 in only 135 years, only half of which can be explained by population growth (39.5 million in 1865; 82.2 million in 2000). Of the remaining growth, nearly half can be explained by the rise of new institutions of higher education: technical universities, arts universities, applied sciences, and institutions for the education of public administrators. Similar stories can be told about many and perhaps most countries in the world. The rapidly rising inclusivity of higher education clearly is a world phenomenon. In 1900, the number of all students in the world amounted to 500,000, whereas in 2000 it sums up to 100 million. That is a worldwide growth over 100 years by a factor of 200 (Meyer & Schofer, 2007, p. 48). And this growth is going on: In 2021, there were 220 million university students. Another perspective on the same phenomenon—​the worldwide rise of mass higher education—​can be established by looking at the working-​age population (25–​64-​year-​ olds) and the share of this group that has higher education. The numbers for 2020 are to be found in “Education at a Glance” (2021), the yearly data handbook published by the OECD (OECD, 2021). This handbook documents for 2020 an OECD average of 33% of this adult group that either has a bachelor’s or master’s or doctoral degree (European Union 2022 average 32%) (OECD, 2021, p. 48). To these, one can add 7% who have a short-​cycle tertiary degree. Countries like the United Kingdom and United States show higher numbers (40% +​10% United Kingdom, 39% +​11% United States) compared to Germany and France (Germany 31% +​1%, France 25% +​15%). A simple prognosis on the basis of these data might lead to the conclusion that, regarding the relatively rich countries that are members in the OECD and the European Union, there is a trend toward half of the adult population acquiring degrees in higher education. In the United States it is already the case that half of the working hours of the whole population are contributed by persons who have a university degree (Autor, 2019).

Migration and the World University: Unification by Migration The local situatedness of the individual university and the social inclusivity of the organization do not imply that students necessarily attend the university nearest to

The University as a World Organization    431 their home region. In medieval Europe, students were often not allowed to study in the university of the city their family lived in; students had to be migrants, and they were strangers in the cities where they studied—​and the same was mostly true for teachers and professors. Being considered strangers allowed the university personnel to claim special rights and privileges and often a jurisdiction of their own, internal to the university (Stichweh, 1991c). The distances students travelled (mostly by foot) were often huge. Therefore, the medieval European universities were one big migration system, characterized by individual and group migrations. Groups of students from a specific city or region often moved to the same, in some cases far-​distant university. In the second half of the 18th century, there arose the idea of “national education” and, as a consequence, national university systems (Stichweh, 2004). Eighteenth-​ century mercantilism already institutionalized obligations to spend some time in the universities of the territorial state where one was born. Since then, one has to distinguish national and international migration of students. There is a steady growth of the absolute number of international students in the last 200 years. But this growth is mostly parallel to the enormous growth of student numbers in the world. Regarding the worldwide number of international students, one can point out a remarkable stability around 2%–​3% of the worldwide student population that, at a specific point in time, studies at a foreign university.10 How to explain the stability of the share of international students in a university world in which all universities devise internationalization strategies? Since 1800 there are always some university systems that succeed to attract growing numbers of foreigners, and where, consequentially, foreigners are a growing part of the student population. At the same time, new national systems are built that become part of the global university system, offering national study options for those who had to go to a foreign university before. The interaction of these two countervailing forces probably explains the somehow astonishing stability of the international share of the global student population. The international migration of students and the integration of new universities and new university systems emerging in countries that had no such systems before are obviously two complementary features of the expansion and global integration of a world university system—​one that is built by migration decisions just as by new national universities that substitute real local possibilities of serious academic study for the limited situation of finding such possibilities only in a foreign country.

The Intellectual Completeness and Multidisciplinarity of the University The dominant medieval name for the university was “studium generale.” This formulated both the social inclusiveness and universality of the university and its thematic universality (i.e., the inclusion of all learned and scientific knowledge systems into one organization), as it finally meant its global reach and the relevance, for all regions of

432   Rudolf Stichweh the European world where universities emerged, of the knowledge produced and taught in these institutions. The thematic universality of the university may be seen as a surprise, as the rise of special schools for specific knowledge systems might have been seen as a more plausible development. In Europe there were early specialized medical schools in Salerno and Montpellier. But medical schools were, again and again, absorbed into or integrated into more general universities—​and the reasons were obvious. Medical knowledge and its practitioners perceived the need for being connected to dominant knowledge systems, thought to be relevant for the learned and scientific reputation of medicine. These were, in the medieval situation, theology and later in early modern Europe and in modernity the scientific knowledge systems in the philosophical faculty. It is once again the network character of knowledge that prevents the segregation of special schools and supports the university as a complete or universal knowledge system integrating all variants of scientific knowledge into one organization. An especially important case are the technical universities arising around 1850. After some decades nearly all of them added nontechnical disciplines, especially in the social sciences, more selectively in the humanities. Besides these technical universities, there are not many other types of special universities that count in the contemporary world. There are some universities specialized in the social sciences (LSE, Mannheim, New School), a significant number of liberal arts colleges and universities (Brown, Dartmouth) specializing in cultural sciences (social sciences and humanities), and universities with a focus on management (St. Gallen). In most of them, the universalizing impulse is weaker, probably for financial reasons. The prominence and predominance of the “general university” (“studium generale”) is one factor in the genesis of the university as a world organization. Universities become relatively big (300–​500 professorships) and structurally similar, they are visible nodes in global knowledge networks, being, therefore, easily compared and ranked. Such global knowledge networks are, first, the cooperation and coauthorship networks of science and, second, the migration networks of scholars, scientists, and students.

The Functional Bifocality of the University: The Rise of the Education/​ Science Nexus and the Integration of the Other Function Systems of Society The university is, first of all, an organization (Luhmann, 1992b). As such, it decides on the inclusion of members (scholars, students, administration) and processes problems by taking decisions regarding problem solutions. As is the case for all organizations, it is an open question which kind of problems they consider as constitutive for the organization. In regard to modern universities, it can be said that they work on problems of (higher) education and at the same time on problems of examining, criticizing,

The University as a World Organization    433 and extending scientific knowledge. This is the historical synthesis of two sometimes diverging problem foci that brought about the modern university in the decades around 1800. There are interesting tensions in the relation between the two primary problem foci of universities. Higher education is first of all a local business that defines the everyday activities of university members in the classes, seminars, and laboratories where they teach students the fundamentals of theories and methods in the sciences. As there are always obligations, dates, and deadlines connected to teaching, the localized activities of higher education normally can claim a priority on the agenda of university personnel. On the other hand, most of these university professionals probably have a value preference for research. Research activities are often localized, too, as far as one uses the localities provided by the university one works for. But research activities have no inherent connection to the locality of the university. The place where research operations are performed is often determined by the objects on which one does research. This means that the answer to the problem one tries to solve may have to be searched at far distant places in the world. And, furthermore, the public addressed by the communication of research results, in a sharp difference to teaching, is never a local public but always the world public of specialists working on or being interested in the respective problems. For the teacher the localized university is the place where the action is, for the researcher his or her university, even if it calls itself a research university “is not a place or a milieu but a pied-​à-​terre” (Rothblatt, 1997, p. 261). Not rarely, researchers practice a certain opportunism in either using the facilities provided by their university or making use of other facilities available elsewhere. This tension of localized teaching and globalized research is constitutive for the functional bifocality of the modern university. Nonetheless, teaching and research are complementary. Science, even in its most recent and most advanced formulations, is the major and often only knowledge system university teaching is supposed to go back to. And as scientific knowledge, even of local circumstances and objects, is either world knowledge or no true knowledge at all, the strongly localized teaching invariably is part of a global knowledge system. And as the process of teaching science always demands a systematic organization of knowledge, there is in every teaching the possibility to discover knowledge deficits and to propose new ideas and unexplored possibilities. Therefore, good and systematic teaching can accidentally become research, even if the teacher had no intention to do research. Although there are tensions and conflicts between higher education and science and between teaching and research, the structural coupling among the two functional complexes in the modern university is so close that all other societal functions are supplementary at best. One can combine a university with sports teams that represent the university in sports competitions or add religious services on certain occasions or earn money through economic/​financial markets with patents or investment of endowment funds. All these activities do not become part of the core of the university as organization, which is primarily defined by the education/​science nexus and its local and global realizations.

434   Rudolf Stichweh But there are two further ways to introduce the other function systems of society into the education/​science nexus of the modern university. The dominant option is to claim that the function systems other than science have a knowledge base of their own that can be considered a type of scientific knowledge. This is postulated for law (considered as “science” in Germany, “jurisprudence” in the United Kingdom/​United States, or part of the humanities elsewhere), medicine (which is integrated into science as “biomedicine”), theology (that still claims to be a kind of encyclopedia of the sciences in some Christian quarters or is mainly based on philology/​history in more modern versions), education (that becomes “educational science” as part of the social sciences), sports (that can productively be studied from a multidisciplinary perspective), technologies (that as engineering sciences generate a new type of scientific disciplines after 1850), and finally for the economy (that is governed by managers who claim their knowledge base as management science). This idea of the knowledge bases of the other function systems being either traditional knowledge or new sciences of their own right allows for integration of teaching and research on these knowledge bases into the university. The only exception probably are the arts. It is not plausible for the system of arts (and it could even be considered degrading) to claim that the production of art is made possible by a kind of knowledge that is, at its core, a variant of scientific knowledge. Therefore, the arts mainly are not a part of the university. For them the education/​science nexus is substituted by an education/​arts nexus—​and on this basis the arts generate higher educational institutions of their own, which are rarely integrated into the university.

The University as a Presence Institution: The Evolution of Interaction Systems Two circumstances have been so far analyzed, which privilege or even demand the local presence of nearly all members of a university. The first regards the unilocality of the university, that is, the fact that most universities are strongly connected to one city (rarely to regions) and one campus within, or near to, the respective city (region) leading to a growth of the university mostly limited to this unitary place. The other circumstance is the localization of teaching. From these circumstances arises a central dimension of nearly all universities. They are based on “interaction systems,” that is, systems consisting of communicative exchanges among participants who share one physical space allowing reciprocal visual and auditory perception during these communicative exchanges. Such systems have been called “interaction systems” or the “interaction order” by Luhmann and Goffman (Goffman, 1983; Luhmann, 1975).

The University as a World Organization    435 In its history the university invents ever-​new types of interaction systems, which define this institution’s “milieu interne.” There is the “tutorial,” a teaching institution consisting of a group of one teacher and one or several students advised by this teacher. First developed in Oxford and Cambridge (here called “supervision”), it spread in variants to many universities. Another type of interaction system is the “Seminar,” introduced in Germany in 18th-​and 19th-​century universities. The Seminar consists of a small or medium number of students guided by a teacher, where a complex of scientific questions is systematically worked upon and furthered by discussions based on presupposed symmetries in knowledge processes.11 A third, important type are “practical exercises,” which mostly introduce students into scientific methods by exercising these methods in a setting where instruments or other resources necessary for these exercises are available. Finally, there is the most classical institution, the “Lecture,” given by an academic teacher to a public that can be relatively small or can in other cases consist of hundreds of hearers. All these interaction systems exist in numerous variants and combinations in different universities and different university systems. Nowadays, there is a global space of types of interaction systems, the most advanced among them providing opportunities of transition from education to the participation in scientific research. Besides these interaction systems belonging to higher education, further interaction systems that represent and realize scientific research arise in the “milieu interne” of the university. Among them is the “research colloquium,” the scientific “workshop,” and the academic “conference.” This is not an exhaustive list. It is only meant as an illustration of this dense, interactive university milieu, where in teaching, research, and administration, ever-​new forms of interaction are invented and institutionalized as claims on the available time of the members of the university.

The University as a “Human Capital” Institution and as the “Center” of the System of Science There are two major production processes going on in the 20th-​and 21st-​century university. The first concerns the production of scientific truths as something that is not the exclusive domain of the university, as other organizations also participate in scientific research: the numerous research institutes established by national states and by charitable foundations based on private money; the industrial research laboratories, which in leading countries especially in Europe, Asia, and North America receive two-​thirds of the total sum of research money spent on the search for truth and its applications; the traditional and new academies of science that, after dominating the 17th and 18th century, survived their 19th-​century crisis for a comeback in the 20th century and often still

436   Rudolf Stichweh have to find and define their specific function in the contemporary system of science, a function not yet fulfilled by competing organizations; the non-​universitarian public intellectuals, some of whom do not only produce “definitions of the situation” (Parsons & Platt, 1974) but try to compete in the search for truth as part of a “third culture,” transcending the division of the “two cultures” of science and humanities postulated by C. P. Snow (Snow, 1965; Stichweh, 2008). However, every single person who works in and publishes from one of these institutions has received the education enabling him or her to participate in the production of science at a university. In this respect the university has a monopoly in controlling the access to the production of science. On the basis of this double function—​first, controlling the education of every contributor to scientific publications and, second, being the place where most of the significant scientific publications are written, read, commented, and criticized—​the university can meaningfully be called the center of the system of science. There is a second function the university fulfils in society. Over the centuries and decades, the names for this second function have changed. In Germany, around 1800, the most important word was Bildung (“self-​cultivation” in the English 18th century) (Bruford, 1975). This means the individual that finds, through intellectual activity, a perspective on the world (Weltbild) and on this basis understands and then defines its role in society. The relation of university and society is furthermore changed by the ongoing disciplinary differentiation in universities and the occupational differentiation in society. Shortly after 1950, one could already speak about “the professionalization of everyone” (Wilensky, 1964) as a process that defined the centrality of the university in a “knowledge society.” There is a complex knowledge system at the basis of any profession, which, at some point, has to be taught at the university. The third idea, in a way reverting to Bildung, is the idea that the university is the “Human Capital” institution. Again, this argues for the conception that highly generalized competences are instilled into individuals by the simple fact that they spend some years in institutions of higher education. These competences enable persons with a university education to fulfil social roles not precisely defined and limited by the subjects studied in the university.12 People acquire general capabilities of dealing with texts and symbols that are later specified by the occupational roles they take.

University Rankings and the Constitution of One University World National and international hierarchies among universities have always been postulated. These perceptions were based on the career paths of professors, the migration of students choosing certain universities, scientific discoveries and institutional innovations attributed to specific universities, and prizes received by university members, especially Nobel Prizes.

The University as a World Organization    437 Such quality assessments were formalized in University and College rankings that came about in the early eighties. In 1983, US News & World Report published its first “Best Colleges Ranking.” These national rankings identified hierarchies of teaching and research in relatively homogenized and well-​known national spaces, with the primary intention of supporting prospective students in the selection of colleges and universities they wanted to apply to. It was a surprise when in 2003, for the first time, a university in Shanghai published a global university ranking (the “Academic Ranking of World Universities”), making use of a methodology that identifies big universities with a very strong focus on a core of disciplines in the natural sciences. In 2004, a second ranking entered the market, the “Times Higher Education–​QS World University Ranking” that was based on a cooperation between the biweekly “Times Higher Education Supplement” and the British education consultancy QS. These partners produced a ranking with a strong reputational focus (based on the communicated opinions of tens of thousands of academics and employers of academics). This reputational focus (50% of the evaluation) was coupled with bibliometric data and statistical data on academic personnel. Times Higher Education (THE) and QS separated as partners in 2009—​and since then THE publishes its own “THE World University Rankings” that are based on 13 indicators: There is again a reputational component (separate for teaching and research) that amounts to 33%. The other 11 indicators are data on the internationality of personnel and students, on financial conditions (money from the state and industry), publication, citation and coauthorship data, and data on student/​teacher ratios and graduate/​undergraduate ratios. There are numerous other rankings. But until now these three rankings are clearly the most consulted and the most discussed from the family of rankings. The introduction of rankings has some significant and transformative effects on the world landscape of universities. The first of these effects is that rankings constitute the system or demonstrate via systematic comparisons the existence of a world system of universities that they purport to describe. The second effect is that rankings “contribute to the worldwide transmission of educational and scientific ideas and ideals. If something is relevant for success in rankings . . . it is probable that it will diffuse through the world system of universities” (Pfeffer & Stichweh, 2015, p. 170). A third effect is that rankings are highly successful by being highly controversial. Rankings are criticized everywhere in Europe, North America, and Australia on the basis of their deficient methodologies. And they seem to be mostly accepted in Asia and Latin America as useful instruments for giving hints how to climb the ladder of academic excellence. These discussions will not go away and rankings will not go away. World rankings are only 15 years old. New, less controversial methodologies will surely be found as has always been the case in other domains of social science. Rankings will be more useful and stay as successful as they are now if four conditions are fulfilled: They have to be research instruments that by new methods of comparison discover features of academic systems that one was not able to see before. Second, they will have to be informative for students in helping them to find exactly the university that is the right one for the plans they have and the competences they already possess.

438   Rudolf Stichweh Third, rankings will have to present exact and plausible data that will help politicians to have an understanding of their own when they try to shape higher education policies. Fourth, rankings as precise comparative descriptions of university worlds in a global perspective will help university administrators to find a niche and a strategy for one’s own university that will ensure its productive survival.

Systems Theory and the World University This chapter has been written from the point of view of sociological systems theory. It is interesting to compare the two most influential authors in sociological systems theory—​ Niklas Luhmann and Talcott Parsons—​in their sociological understanding of the university. To begin with Niklas Luhmann (1927–​1988), the marginal place of the university in his sociological writings, especially in his contributions to the theory of society, is a surprise. There exists only one very small collection of sociological essays on the university (Luhmann, 1992a), all of which are occasional writings that do not demonstrate a theoretical interest in the university. Obviously, there are empirical and theoretical reasons for this disinterest. On the empirical level, it is easy to see that Luhmann had been disappointed by the university to which he returned relatively late in his life (1968) after an interlude of nearly 20 years, in which public administration had been his primary field of professional activity, observation, and research. He perceived the university as only a small institution—​and the university where he became a professor for 25 years (Bielefeld) did not fulfil the expectations he had invested in it. It had been planned as an “institution”—​ that is, as an “important societal unit” such as the family (Luhmann, 1992b, p. 90). But as an institution it had failed: “Aus der Institution ist nichts geworden.”13 It only became a normal organization. Theoretically, Luhmann defined the university by the theory of functional differentiation, that is, the horizontal differentiation of function systems, among them “education” and “science.” The university as organization participates in education and science. Luhmann preferred to study education as school education and science as a global communication system that is based in research organizations. There was no special place for the university: “Ich glaube nicht, dass es diese Zentralinstitutionen noch gibt, wo die gute Gesellschaft exemplarisch vorgeführt werden kann.”14 In Talcott Parsons we find nearly exactly the opposite diagnosis. There is an unsuspected centrality of the university for modern society: “The university system constitutes the main institutionalized focus of trusteeship of this great development of secular knowledge and learning. It is perhaps the most important structural component of modern societies that had no direct counterpart in earlier types of society” (Parsons, 1961, p. 261). In Parsons there is a very long trajectory for this argument.

The University as a World Organization    439 There is the central theoretical position of rationality, which is defined as solidarity between science and the everyday world in “The Structure of Social Action,” his first book (Parsons, 1937b; Stichweh, 1980). Immediately after finishing this book, Parsons started his lifelong work on the sociology of the professions (Parsons, 1937a). He understood the professions as a central part of the structure of society. This centrality is based on strong links between traditions of learning, the university as the place of learning and of the education of professionals, and functional domains of social action (medicine, law, religion), in which the cognitive traditions of the university become institutionalized. This theorizing found its conclusion in Parson’s last book on the American university (Parsons & Platt, 1974), which understands the university as a “fiduciary institution” that is the most important representative of “cognitive rationality” in the structure of society. The present author started his work on the theory of the university with a reconstruction of the history of the early modern European university (Stichweh, 1988, 1991a) that combines perspectives from Niklas Luhmann and Talcott Parsons. The history of higher education as an autonomous system in society is interpreted in terms of the history of functional differentiation of society. Medieval higher education was still mostly a part of church organization and religious knowledge domains (although medieval Europe postulated a kind of European relevance and autonomy of the university system protected by the papacy and empire). In the early modern period the dominance of the expectations of the emerging territorial state is superimposed over this medieval level of structure formation. And then, in early 19th-​century society, the fusion of the second scientific revolution (Brush, 1988) and the knowledge systems of the university adds a third functional contiguity (the science-​education nexus) to the earlier structures. This book from 1991 and many writings since then (Stichweh, 2013, 2024) extended this view of the university system as a European and later world system of its own, being part of the functional differentiation of society and bringing about an institution that has become a big institution (no longer a small institution) with complex structural couplings to all the function systems of society and a phenomenal quantitative growth on the basis of processes of social inclusion in all regions of world society.

Notes 1. Cf. for the first college in New England, today the most famous university in the world (Eliot, 1643). 2. In later centuries it additionally becomes a regional and a national institution. 3. There is the remarkable moment in 1795 when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson proposed to George Washington to transfer the whole faculty of the University of Geneva from Switzerland to the United States to establish a National University of the United States. But Washington did in no way favor this idea. He objected that one could not know if these professors were really Republicans, and this transplant of a whole university seems to have been perceived by him as an aristocratic move incompatible with the popular mind in America (Madsen, 1966, pp. 28–​29). 4. See the case studies on Keele, Sussex, East Anglia, and Essex in Pellew and Taylor (2020).

440   Rudolf Stichweh 5. It nearly disappeared in 2016/​2017 but was finally saved by a much younger institution, the Italian state. 6. Article “Association of American Universities,” https://​en.wikipe​dia.org/​wiki/​Associati​ on_​o​f_​Am​eric​an_​U​nive​rsit​ies. 7. Another indicator of stability is that only four institutions had to leave AAU (Clark, Catholic University, Nebraska-​Lincoln, Syracuse). There were no closures or fusions. 8. This is the background to the idea of a “National University” (Madsen, 1966) that never came about. 9. The classical text is from Kant (1798). 10. From 1975 to 2013 the number of international students grew from 0.8 million to 4.1 million (UNESCO, 2015/​2016, p. 44). In 2021, there are 4.8 million international students. 11. Cf. on the introduction of the seminar model in English reform universities in the 1960s, John Charmley (Charmley, 2020, p. 156), on Frank Thistlethwaite Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (1961–​1980): “influenced by positive American experience, Thistlethwaite insisted that the major vehicle of pedagogy would be the seminar—​not only cheaper than the Oxford and Cambridge system of tutorials (or supervisions), but also facilitating group discussion in a way that the Oxbridge system did not.” 12. Cf. (Goldin & Katz, 2008), esp. ­chapter 1, “The Human Capital Century,” pp. 11–​43. 13. “Nothing became of the institution” (p. 94). 14. “I do not believe that there are any longer these central institutions, where the good society could be demonstrated in an exemplary way” (Luhmann, 1992c, p. 123).

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442   Rudolf Stichweh Stichweh, R. (1991c). Universitätsmitglieder als Fremde in spätmittelalterlichen und frühmodernen europäischen Gesellschaften. In Der Fremde. Studien zu Soziologie und Sozialgeschichte (2010) (pp. 84–​110). Suhrkamp. Stichweh, R. (1992). Motive und Begründungsstrategien für Wissenschaftlichkeit in der deutschen Jurisprudenz des 19. Jahrhunderts. Rechtshistorisches Journal, 11, 330–​351. Stichweh, R. (2004). From the Peregrinatio Academica to contemporary international student flows: National culture and functional differentiation as emergent causes. In C. Charle, J. Schriewer, & P. Wagner (Eds.), Transnational intellectual networks: Forms of academic knowledge and the search for cultural identities (pp. 345–​360). Campus. Stichweh, R. (2008). Die zwei Kulturen? Gegenwärtige Beziehungen von Natur und Humanwissenschaften. Luzerner Universitätsreden, 18, 7–​21. Stichweh, R. (2013). Wissenschaft, Universität, Professionen: Soziologische Analysen. Transcript. Stichweh, R. (2020). Der Beitrag der Religion zur Entstehung einer funktional differenzierten Gesellschaft. In M. Pohlig & D. Pollack (Eds.), Die Verwandlung des Heiligen: Die Geburt der Moderne aus dem Geist der Religion (pp. 173–​187). Berlin University Press. Stichweh, R. (2024). Wissenschaft, Universität, Professionen: Vol. 2. Transcript. UNESCO. (2015/​2016). UNESCO Science Report: Towards 2030 (2nd. rev. ed. 2016). UNESCO. Wilensky, H. L. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70, 137–​158.

chapter 21

Small Worl d s Homeschooling and the Modern Family Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman

Introduction It has become a truism to even mention it: The COVID-​19 pandemic altered every single aspect of our lives globally—​our work and leisure time, our rights and duties, our family lives, even our intimate relationships were impacted. One of the most noticeable perturbations has been the closing down of schools and the confinement of families inside their homes. A great many parents, those with young children most evidently, were suddenly assigned the task of organizing and supporting learning activities for their progeniture, while sometimes simultaneously working from home themselves. Unprepared, burdened with the new role forced onto them or disturbed by the virtual presence of teachers in their living room, many soon longed for the reopening of schools. A small group chose instead to continue homeschooling their children even after the end of their confinements, thus contributing to raising the numbers of homeschoolers in many countries of the world. Though drastic in some cases, the increase resulting from the pandemic merely accelerated a preexisting, more profound and earlier trend. Beginning in the 1970s in the United States and eventually arising in most industrialized countries of the world, the homeschooling movement has been growing and extending its scope ever since its first appearance. In an attempt to better understand the sociological dynamics underpinning this increasingly global phenomenon, we examine them through the lenses of systems theory. The chapter first discusses the turn to modernity, paying specific attention to the emergence of the modern family. We then reflect on complications arising from the functional differentiation of society and emphasize two potentially problematic dynamics—​reductive and expansive—​typical of modernity. Next, we examine how such dynamics play out in the specific case of the relationship between the family and school

444    Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman education. We then explore whether and why schooling may be perceived as a risk, and homeschooling as a solution, by some families. In the concluding section, we suggest understanding the homeschooling movement as a specific case within a broader range of social movements through which modernity reacts to its own self-​made problems.

From Impersonal to Personal: The Modern Family The very notion that children should be systematically educated, and that the two instances in charge of them, indeed monopolizing their existence, should be the family and the school, results from a not-​so-​distant evolution. Before the 17th and 18th centuries, for most of the population across Europe, schools played a marginal role. They were attended sporadically, if at all, and primarily dedicated to religious instruction. Were it to exist at all, one’s school education was certainly not considered a key factor shaping one’s destiny. The opposite could be said of one’s family. The latter “did not penetrate very far into human sensibility” at the time, nor was it primarily concerned with education per se (Ariès, 1962, p. 411; see also Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 62), but it played a central, indeed “multifunctional” role in society and was determinant in assigning its members to social subsystems (Luhmann, 1990). A person was given a place in society through membership of their family. The family, in other words, operated as the pivotal mechanism of social inclusion. To be part of a family was a public fact, not a private matter. Over the long transition from premodern society to modernity, the old stratified order, in which a person’s origin was deemed determinant for all aspects of their life, was then progressively replaced by a functionally differentiated order. Various types of social activity progressively released themselves from the moral, familial, and religious constraints that had constricted their development. Against sociological dogma, Luhmann famously described this emerging modern order as a loose, heterarchical ensemble of functionally differentiated systems (Mangez & Vanden Broeck, 2020, 2021). Art, law, science, education, politics, the economy, as well as other systems, became capable of developing themselves according to their own rules, so to speak. The turn to modernity thus required (premodern) families to hand over most of their traditional tasks to these emerging function systems and their specialized organizations (schools, companies, courts, States and administrations, etc.). Along with these structural changes of the primary type of differentiation, the family loses its function to regulate inclusion and exclusion. Families become private families, which, among other things, means that they no longer determine the lifestyle of their members and no longer operate under public supervision. (Luhmann, 2008, p. 41)

Homeschooling and the Modern Family    445 The family’s loss of functions has been acknowledged by many scholars and gave rise to discussions about the function and specificity of the modern family. What remains of the family, historian Christopher Lasch thus asks, once “the school, the helping professions, and the peer group have taken over most of [its] functions,” once “doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, child guidance experts, officers of the juvenile courts and other specialists began to supervise child-​rearing, formerly the business of the family” (Lasch, 1977, p. xiv, xxi)? Praised by the outer fringes of both American conservatism and left-​ wing anti-​authoritarianism, Lasch’s answer asserts that the modern family has been stripped of all its prerogatives. Lasch places the blame on “capitalism” and the extension of its control over society “through the agency of management, bureaucracy, and professionalization” (Lasch, 1977). Luhmann develops a different argument. On the one hand, he acknowledges that the turn to modernity deprived the family of many of its traditional roles: most crucially, it no longer has the function of a legitimate general instance of inclusion for society (Luhmann, 1990). However, in contrast to the controversial historian, Luhmann argues that the family as we know it today has only been able to acquire its own, modern, function as a result of such a loss. The argument runs as follows. Full inclusion through family membership, he explains, gave way to partial inclusion through function systems (Braeckman, 2006). The latter include individuals through the prism of their function: One is a (more or less successful) pupil in the educational system, a (more or less healthy) body in the medical system, a (more or less rich) participant in the economic system, and so on. Modern society, the argument continues, “differentiates and specifies modes of interaction within functional systems and their organizations to a previously inconceivable degree” (Luhmann, 2013, p. 139). Inclusion in society now demands that one live one’s life as an individual career, navigating between impersonal function systems, facing an open and uncertain future.1 At a loss, divided into different versions of oneself depending on functional divisions, the modern “in-​dividual” (Nassehi, 2002, p. 128) can now hardly be fully included in society: “with the adoption of functional differentiation individual persons ( . . . ) must be regarded a priori as socially displaced” (Luhmann, 1986, p. 15). As a result of this evolution, Luhmann argues, the need for a specific space capable of recognizing the individual as a special person emerges and provides the closed, private, world of the family, or more broadly intimacy, with its function. with the loss of the family’s political and productive functions and the increasing spread of schooling to the population as a whole, which opened up careers to children independently of their origins, the question of internal cohesion presented itself. In about 1800, the consequences were still felt by only a very small section of the population, but for them a substitute semantics was offered, which then gradually spread to larger sections of the population, namely, the notion of a personally, intimately grounded partnership based on a love match, and nevertheless enduring, in which the individual could find understanding and support for his specific individuality. (Luhmann, 2013, p. 240)

446    Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman Its “loss of function” created a difference between the family and the rest of society: It made it possible for the family to become that space from which the impersonal becomes treated as personal. The semantics of the modern family, as a space for intimacy, could now “base itself on a factor which has never before influenced symbolic properties in this way, namely the difference of impersonal and personal relationships” (Luhmann, 1986, p. 152, emphasis in original). The function of the modern family emerges from, and thanks to, this (new) difference between the family and its increasingly complex environment. Whatever is experienced by family members in their daily lives outside the family (even the most impersonal experience of all) can reenter the private sphere and become thematized within the family as a personal matter. The difference between system (family) and environment (other systems, individual consciousness, bodies, etc.) reenters the system. This reentry turns the family into a space where the overall behavior and experience of its members “can be treated, made visible, monitored, cared for, supported” (Luhmann, 1990, p. 198). Viviana Zelizer (1985) noted that, as a result of the differentiation between the home and economic production in the 18th century, the valuation of children reversed radically: they became economically worthless and emotionally priceless, while the opposite had long been the case in medieval Europe (the finding is also echoed in Ariès, 1962). The family now operates as the specific function system where individuals can become included (communicatively) as persons. The “loss of function,” then, does not imply a decrease in the social significance of the family, as feared by Lasch, but rather allows “a functional specification” of the family: Relieved of its traditional tasks, it could now intensify its orientation toward persons (Luhmann, 1990). The generalization of school education results from the same process as does the modern family. Once the family no longer operated as the main instance of social inclusion, a new understanding of individual life courses could develop, which provided education with its raison d’être. Instead of being understood as the tightly coupled outcome of one’s origin, as in medieval Europe, individual life courses came to be seen as changeable, malleable, and detachable from their past. Malleability was first considered a characteristic of the child (Ariès, 1962) and later extended to the entire life course (Luhmann, 2021). The now newly conceivable notion that one’s life is open to various courses is the most fundamental condition for the emergence and systematization of modern education. Only then can the very intention to change people’s life courses through instruction and the expectation of thus loosening the grip of their past on their future, emerge and serve as a foundation for the establishment of an education system. The differentiation between school education and the family should not be interpreted as a transfer of functions that would give more importance to the former and less to the latter: As underlined by Philippe Ariès, the turning of the family into a site for upbringing and personal affection runs parallel to the progressive generalization of school education, “as if the modern family originated at the same time as the school, or at least as the general habit of educating children at school” (Ariès, 1962, p. 370). Both the school and the family became more specific and more important simultaneously (Tyrell & Vanderstraeten, 2007).

Homeschooling and the Modern Family    447

After Marx: The Problematic Consequences of Modernity The differentiation between school education and the family raises the issue of their interrelations. Each system has acquired its own function: the family with its diffuse orientation toward persons, and school education with its more specific intention to change life courses through instruction. The problem of the relations between distinct functions can be considered highly typical of modernity. It can be raised not only for these two systems but also more broadly for all differentiated systems. Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann, the two key figures in the development of sociological systems theory, held different, even opposite, views on this problem. Writing mainly in the two first thirds of the 20th century, Parsons could still conceive of modernity as a series of normatively integrated national societies (with the United States as a paradigmatic case) capable of developing and coupling different subsystems (their economy, their education system, their polity, their family system, their religious system). Each system would help solve a specific problem and coordinate its operations with those of other systems by interchanging various services with them. Playing with a series of pattern variables—​instrumental—​expressive; neutral—​affective; specific—​ diffuse; universal—​particular—​Parsons would for example differentiate between the family and the school and emphasize, inspired as he was by Emile Durkheim, the division of labor among them: Each would support the development of specific components of the structure of personality and complement the other (Parsons, 1959). Schools consider individuals as learners and treat them in a universalistic (vs. particularistic), neutral (vs. affective), and specific (vs. diffuse) fashion, while remaining in principle indifferent to their particular characteristics. The family, by contrast, is characterized by its particularistic, emotional, and diffuse relation to children. Through socialization in the family, individuals “internalize” values and then become available for schools, where, in turn, they learn to adjust to a specific universalistic-​achievement system (Parsons, 1951), thanks to which they are eventually assigned a role in the economy and a status in society. Robert Dreeben (1968), adopting a typically Parsonian perspective, considered the type of expectations that schools project onto pupils and students to be representative of (thus adapted to, and preparing for) what is expected of individuals within a universalistic, affect-​neutral, and performance-​related modern society. For Luhmann and Schorr (2000, p. 32), such a perspective “assumed too much harmony on the level of the societal system.” Luhmann’s view on modern society is in many ways more complex and more disillusioned than Parsons’. Instead of a world organized into national societies capable of coordinating their various functions, he defined modernity as a “world society” (Luhmann, 1971) differentiated into global function systems, each of which assumes the primacy of its own function over all others. He did not consider functional differentiation to be functional: There can be “no guarantee ( . . . ) that structural developments within function systems remain compatible with

448    Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman each other” (Luhmann, 1997, p. 76). He perceived and emphasized a “dark side” of functional differentiation (Teubner, 2021). The latter, he repeatedly explained, comes with a wide range of implications, including in particular “many problematic consequences”: “functional systems of society burden themselves—​and thus society—​with problems produced by their own outdifferentiation, specialization, and focus on high performance” (Luhmann, 2013, p. 124). Functional differentiation therefore cannot mean that each system can safely operate within its own reserved territory and offer its services to others. More chaotic and much less balanced situations are occurring. Building on Luhmann’s work, Gunther Teubner (2011, p. 224) refers to these problems as “destructive dynamics” associated with “the one-​sided rationality-​maximization” of each function system. One can distinguish two dynamics through which functionally differentiated systems might create problems, which correspond to the two key attributes that characterize them: They offer a very specific (hence restricted) yet universal (and thus expandable) way of dealing with the world. On the one hand, systems operate indeed very specifically; they establish themselves by continuously cutting and severing the world. They come to be by excluding all that which they are not, most notably “what Pascal had called ‘le coeur’ and which is sometimes referred to today as the ‘lifeworld’ ” (Luhmann, 2004b, p. 86). They tend to become obsessed with their own internal dynamics. Their very success, Luhmann explains, “depends upon neglect” (1997, p. 76). Functional differentiation thus incessantly leaves the world in a severed and mutilated condition. On the other hand, because each system relies on a universal function, it simultaneously tends to become invasive; it colonizes its surroundings, while simultaneously running the risk of itself becoming invaded by other logics. Systems are indeed inclined to turn ever more elements of their environment into their own logic, contributing thus to processes of potentially excessive marketization, politicization, juridification, scientification, medicalization, and indeed educationalization (see Luhmann, 2013, p. 95). And, Teubner remarks suggestively, “[e]‌xcessive juridification results in new injustices; ( . . . ) new pathologies arise from excessive medicalization” (Teubner, 2021, p. 513). The perspective echoes ideas that had been developed much earlier. In a specific and still limited way, Marx had touched upon these problems—​capitalism is dehumanizing the world, he famously argued—​but, according to Luhmann, this critique remained too “restricted” (Luhmann, 1982, p. 342). For him, the dehumanizing process at work in the Marxist critique is not the curse solely of the economy. He therefore argued in favor of “the establishment of a non-​Marxist Marx,” one that would loosen its fixation with the economy and become sensitive to “parallel phenomena” at work “in different functional areas” (Luhmann, 1998, pp. 7, 9; see also Luhmann, 1982). It is certainly true that the economy cannot help but turn that which it observes into a commodity (thus colonizing and mutilating the world at the same time), but, Luhmann suggests, is that reductive-​expansive dynamic not at work within other systems, too? Isn’t it the case that the law, somehow similarly, can only apprehend the problems it deals with by alienating them from their full original breadth, so as to (re)construct them specifically into legal problems that it can then handle with its own means (Luhmann, 1969; Teubner, 1999)?

Homeschooling and the Modern Family    449 In Luhmann’s perspective, reductive reconstructions of this kind are very characteristic of modern society. All function systems, not the economy alone, alienate. Education continuously expands its reach and simultaneously reduces individuals to pupils, students, or learners and ultimately retains nothing of them except for their academic performances (or failures). Such an indifference actually allows for the establishment of systems (see Vanden Broeck, Chapter 18, this volume). It might be tempting to characterize modern society as an impersonal mass society and to leave it at that. As we have seen, however, such an assessment ignores the fact that modern society grew more impersonal and more personal at the very same time: In Luhmann’s words (1986, p. 12), “it affords more opportunities both for impersonal and for more intensive personal relationships.” With the functional differentiation of society, close and personal relationships, most notably in the context of the family, emerge and acquire a special, compensatory function. Like a Haven in a Heartless World (Lasch, 1977), they are expected to offer a familiar space, one that is “still understandable, intimate and close,” a refuge to “cope with the unwholesomeness of the world” (Luhmann, 1986, p. 16, 153), “protection and support, as it were, against the dominant characteristics of modern society—​against the economic necessity to work and exploit, against regulation by the state, against research that presses for technology” (Luhmann, 2013, p. 245). The refuge, however, is not necessarily safe; there can be no guarantee that the line drawn between the development of a private sphere of personal relationships (family, love, friendship) and other impersonal function systems will not be crossed.

Autonomy and Dependence: The School, the State, and the Family In his history of school education, Luhmann distinguishes three stages, each of which develops its own contingency formula and assumes a certain relationship between school education and the family. In the first, not yet fully modern stage, education is conceived of as the realization of one’s natural perfection. Education then does not involve conveying knowledge but rather avoiding corruption, moralizing and, in this way, merely supporting every being in achieving “its perfection through transcending his state of being” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 71). At this point in time, the hierarchical structure of society was still assumed to be self-​evident; perfection was thus conceived of as adjusted to the stipulations of one’s social status (kinship). Understandably then, the context of the family was considered just as valuable as, or even more valuable than that of school education. Sending children to schools was then still met with various forms of resistance on the part of families (Tyrell & Vanderstraeten, 2007). Because it had long conceived its offspring’s life course as inscribed in the nature of their origin, the nobility in particular was not inclined to accept school education as a relevant resource. One only needed to let the good nature of the noble child flourish and protect

450    Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman it from the risk of corruption (Luhmann, 2013, p. 85). For the lower strata of society, resistance to schooling was due to more material motives: Children contributed to the maintenance of the household either directly as coworkers or indirectly as caregivers for their younger siblings and were therefore needed for work or at home. Excluding them from the world of work, Zelizer (1985, p. 12) explains, was “a difficult and controversial process.” Their monopolization by the school was not welcome. School attendance was often not a priority for these families (Tyrell, 1987). Initially, thus, the logic of the school was still subjected to, and dominated by, other logics. Resistances to schooling proved temporary. Little by little, school education and family education became admitted “as two equal possibilities; at first as alternatives and then, starting in the middle of the [18th] century, increasingly as successive phases in the education process” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 76). The 19th century in Europe saw the emergence of a new contingency formula oriented toward “all-​around education” (Bildung). While the perfection formula took for granted the existence of natural differences between human beings, and hence considered the family as a very suitable educational setting, the all-​around formula moved some distance away from this assumption: Education came to be understood no longer as the realization of one’s natural perfection but as gaining greater independence from one’s origins through cognition. All-​around education now involves instruction and determines what counts as knowledge by relying on science and the university. “Science has the highest place in all-​ around education, and it is also its subject matter,” while the family, for its part, becomes “marginalized as an overlapping domain” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 91). The difference between family upbringing and school education thus became sharper. All-​around education is about making “subjects” capable of reflecting on their relation to the world thanks to instruction. So long as it relied on the all-​around formula, education, however, could not yet be considered fully self-​referential: The limits of what counted as knowledge were still in the (external) hands of science. In the second half of the 20th century, “learning to learn” became the dominant formula that organizes education in a different, autonomous way. With this new formula, science (or any other fundamental, normative ideal) no longer defines the limit of what is worth learning. Education achieves self-​referentiality: Learning is at once independent from its environment (it does not rely specifically on science or another external instance) and capable of connecting with anything in its environment (it can be applied to anything, anyone, at any time). The sequence that goes from the first (human perfection) to the second (all-​around education) and then to the third formula (learning to learn) has turned education into an increasingly self-​referential domain: In the end, “the ability to learn formula barely includes any recognizable special relations to one of the environment domains” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 70). Before examining the implications of such a process for its familial environment, a remark must be made with regard to a specific problem in the differentiation of education. Education, Luhmann and Schorr argue, suffers from a technological deficit: It does not possess a symbolically generalized medium to support its operations (like money for the economy or truth for science, for example). As a social process, it lacks a

Homeschooling and the Modern Family    451 medium to reach the learners’ consciousness, its target. In order to compensate for this deficit, the main solution has consisted in relying on the State to ensure the organization of lengthy interactions between learners and teachers in the classroom (for a thorough development, see Vanden Broeck, 2020a, 2020b). Their co-​presence is meant to compensate for the lack of a symbolically generalized medium. Education must rely on the state for, as a system, it does not have the means to ensure the actual organization of classroom interactions: It can teach, but it cannot make collectively binding decisions; it cannot force learners to attend school; and it cannot fund education or pay teachers. For all this, it has been dependent mainly upon the organizing ability of the state—​but also on the support of families (Tyrell, 1987). The relationship among education, politics, and the family is, however, not a hierarchical or causal one. Education, one could tentatively argue, actually operates more like a sort of parasite: It uses these other systems’ performances as a support for its own operations, which makes it dependent and autonomous at once. The COVID-​19 pandemic has not proved that wrong; it has, in fact, rather revealed that with the relative retreat of the state, education could adapt, search, and become dependent upon other supports (platforms, families, technologies), which it somehow colonized as well in order to pursue its operations despite the (temporary) inability of states to organize schools and classrooms (see Vanden Broeck, 2021, and Chapter 18, in this volume). That many parents felt burdened by the situation is but a sign of this colonization. Education’s deficit thus turns it into a particularly demanding system, relying on both family support and the state; and actually requiring bringing together the entire population of young people, cut off from their families in classrooms, and having them spend a significant amount of their daily lives, for years, in the presence of their teachers and peers: “one can think of it as a concentration of people of the same age in a relatively big interaction system,” “a system of immense size and incalculable complexity” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 31, 19). No other function system has ever developed such requirements.

Homeschooling as Protest From the perspective of the family, the situation is not without risks. By attending school, one “is confronted for the first time and suddenly with a society that is no longer negotiated by the family” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 31). The differentiation of education and its organization in classrooms allows for the creation of a peculiar social order, strictly distinct from its simultaneously operating and turbulent environment. What children learn from their teachers and the ways in which they might be affected by being socialized with their peers escape family control (Tyrell & Vanderstraeten, 2007). Luhmann’s observation (2000, 2006) that the individual has no choice, if she wants to participate in modern society, but to place her trust in systems and organizations to which she has in fact “ceded control” thus proves all the more relevant for school education.

452    Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman Luhmann and Schorr (1979/​2000, p. 32) therefore raise the question: “how and with what repercussions and counter movements” can the family system “handle the socialization and education in schools”?2 Reflecting on this question, one may think of the many ways in which families attempt to gain some control over the schooling of their children (the attention paid to selecting a given school, expectations with regard to staff training, etc.) or the ways in which family roles and everyday organization need to adjust to school education and its organization. When Luhmann and Schorr alluded to the “repercussions” and even the “counter movements” that schooling could produce on the part of families, it was not entirely clear what they had in mind precisely. They did not mention the homeschooling movement specifically. The latter had hardly begun at the time. It is, however, not difficult to interpret the homeschooling movement and the decisions that parents make to educate their children at home as counter-​reactions to schooling. Homeschooling is indeed typically practiced in these contexts with a highly developed educational system. The phenomenon first emerged in the United States, where it has been growing regularly since the 1970s, and later expanded in most developed countries across the world, notably in Europe, where it is now growing at a faster rate (Tilman & Mangez, 2021). Its expansion can therefore not be attributed to the lack of a formal system or to its underdevelopment. Instead, it must be put in relation to the development of schooling itself. It develops from, and expands together with, education systems. All the historical accounts of the movement associate its emergence with two groups of homeschoolers.3 The group within which the movement originated was made up of progressive parents inspired by John Holt. Permeated by a liberal ideology, they considered schools a too rigid environment for the differentiated needs of their children. Very critical of what they viewed as school education’s reductive focus on the cognitive performances of their children, they were hoping to provide them with a richer, less one-​dimensional, more personalized environment at home. Schools were criticized for being coercive bureaucratically organized environments. In the 1980s, another quite distinct group of homeschoolers, whose best-​known leader at the time was Raymond Moore, emerged in the American landscape. Driven by the “conviction that educating their children is a God-​given right and responsibility” (Kunzman, 2009, p. 6), these conservative Christians viewed public school education as too permissive and rose up against the secularization of society and its schooling system. Here again, it is easy to see the religious motivation underpinning this group of parents as reacting against the school system’s one-​sidedness. In the two cases of orientation toward homeschooling by progressive parents and by conservative Christians in the United States, it can thus be argued that it is the increased self-​referentiality of the educational system, that is, the very fact that education increasingly reduces the world to its own logic (Ball, 2000; Nóvoa & Yariv-​Mashal, 2003) and develops a form of indifference to criteria that are not primarily scholastic, that leads one group (the expressive progressives) to consider the system inhuman and impersonal

Homeschooling and the Modern Family    453 and the other (the religious conservatives) to deplore the absence of moral or religious limits within the system. While these two orientations remain well represented among today’s population of homeschoolers, the latter has grown more and more diversified. As noted by Gaither in his history of homeschooling in America, “[h]‌ome education is now being done by ( . . . ) many different kinds of people for ( . . . ) many different reasons” (Gaither, 2017, p. 282). Homeschooling families no longer belong solely to the fringes and now include the mainstream of American life. In many other countries of the world as well, an increasing number of “middle-​grounders” (Collom & Mitchell 2005, p. 276), which identifies neither with right-​wing religious groups nor with the libertarian Left, turn to homeschooling. They now form “a heterogeneous population with varying and overlapping motivations” (Collom, 2005, p. 331). New typologies have emerged in the literature to account for the increasing diversity of homeschoolers.4 The latest developments in research on homeschooling also show a tendency for the movement to become more and more organized. Most homeschooling families have actually never operated in isolation. From the early days of the movement, at a local level, parents from different families would coordinate themselves and organize some activities together or take turns to supervise a group of children. As time went by, self-​organizing processes became more and more important, even professionalized (Kunzman, 2009; Stevens, 2003). In the United States, the practice is now underpinned by specialized communication (with many handbooks on “How to homeschool your children”), platforms and professionals offering their support, and private or even public institutions offering parents day-​by-​day assistance in their undertaking. Gaither speaks of hybrid forms of homeschooling where children actually combine a number of activities put in place by diverse organizations, some of which begin to look like schools. According to Kunzman and Gaither (2013), homeschooling parents of all orientations share a common aspiration to take back “control” over their children’s education and their family life. Murphy et al. (2017, p. 87) similarly consider “the control of their children and their education” to be the parents’ “universal, prime motive for homeschooling.” To make sense of the history of the movement and its most recent developments, Gaither speaks of a cycle where a first, long-​lasting phase of delegation “to other institutions of functions that once lay very much within the realm of family responsibility” is now followed by a new, emerging and possibly “revolutionary,” phase consisting of a “reversal of this longstanding pattern,” and visible notably in the current development of homeschooling and other home-​based practices: The “historic deference to expertise” would be giving way to “a new spirit of self-​reliance” (Gaither, 2017, pp. xii–​xiii). Gaining back control seems to be a common denominator to all or most homeschooling families. A close examination of the intersystemic relations between formal education and the private sphere of the modern family reveals the various ways through which school requirements increasingly penetrate family life and helps, in turn, to explain the need that some families now feel to gain back control. Systems theorists

454    Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman find that the relationship between the school and the family has grown increasingly unbalanced. Schools tend to rely on families for a number of problems (Luhmann & Schorr, 1979, 2000) while the opposite is hardly the case: Family life as such cannot really count on school education to facilitate its own functioning (Tyrell, 1987; Tyrell & Vanderstraeten, 2007). That school education tends to (re)shape family roles according to its own requirements becomes particularly visible when tensions develop in the family with regard to homework and school results: Even in their own families, children are increasingly regarded and valued, or devalued, for their performances as pupils (Tyrell & Vanderstraeten, 2007). Parents, for their part, are expected to become involved in solving a number of problems resulting from the differentiation of school education. Tyrell (1987, p. 108) draws attention to the significant “preparatory, accompanying and support services” which families make available to the school. He underlines distinct ways in which schooling colonizes families, thus turning them into a support system at its service: While homework evidently impacts family life and sometimes turns parents into unpaid school employees, the latter are also expected to ensure regular school attendance even when schooling itself fails to motivate their children and sometimes even triggers feelings of reluctance, anxiety, or school phobia. The very functioning of school education seems favorable to the creation of frustrations and disappointments, but, Tyrell further explains, in most cases, schooling merely leaves the task of processing these emotional states to families. The support that parents thus provide to their children with regard to school education should not be considered merely a family matter. It is, in fact, indicative of the simultaneously reductive and expansive force exerted by one system (the school) on another (the family). The fact that the family has been turned into a support system for the school goes often unnoticed as such: It takes the appearance of solidarity and tensions between parents and their children, and thus seems internal to the family. From a system-​theoretical perspective, however, these situations reveal school education’s high level of dependence on family support. They merely show how the logic of school education may affect and intrude on family life.

Conclusion: Modernity’s Counter-​R eactions In this chapter, the differences between school education and the family have been reconstructed from the perspective of Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. In contrast with several other sociological traditions, systems theory does not attribute modernity’s most central problems to the domination of a logic, class, narrative, or cultural orientation (against which alternatives could compete). What creates problems is rather the very form of (modern) society itself. And this means: not the predominance of a model,

Homeschooling and the Modern Family    455 but rather the absence of such predominance, resulting in the tumultuous coexistence of different logics, each concerned with, and assuming the primacy of, its own function. Function systems tend to expand and impose their own specific logic over others. In the context of this chapter, homeschooling has been discussed, not so much for its own sake but rather as a case of counter-​reaction to functional differentiation. It illustrates how the exclusive and self-​centered logics of modern society do indeed give rise to reactions in the form of social movements and protests, claiming and hoping to reorder modern society along lines that run against its functional differentiation: putting religion, love, the family, the nation, or whatever else, first as it were, or rather “above” other functions. Thus, the difference between schooling and homeschooling stems from the fact that at home, “the process of education [can remain] bound to the fulfillment—​even to the primacy—​of another function” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 61). Relying on systems theory makes it possible to identify the “form of the problem” (i.e., conflicting expansive-​reductive systems) which is at work in these situations independently of its actual content (education and the family). In turn, it becomes possible to consider that the same form of problem or dynamic—​Teubner (2011) calls it a dynamic of “regime-​collisions”—​might be at work with other systems and give rise to other social movements. To the extent that such movements react to highly advanced self-​referential systems by ceasing to place their trust in their organizations (schools, hospitals, firms, courts, political parties, etc.), they will often take on the appearance of a retreat from modernity. Problems of trust “lead to feelings of alienation, and eventually to retreat into smaller worlds of purely local importance, to new forms of ‘ethnogenesis’, to a fashionable longing for an independent if modest living, to fundamentalist attitudes or other forms of retotalizing milieux and ‘life-​worlds’ ” (Luhmann, 2000, pp. 103–​104). The rise of self-​referential and conflicting systemic perspectives in the domain of education or in other domains (the economy, health, law, or politics, for example) tends to generate distrust of systems and their institutions and the emergence of particular “lifestyles” characterized by a form of withdrawal from the established systems. The notions of retreat or withdrawal should not be taken as actual backward moves to nonmodern or premodern forms of existence. Such movements cannot be understood analytically as competing at the same “level” as functional differentiation itself. They are, in fact, an outcome of, and at the same time a reaction to, modernity. One must thus consider them as highly modern. They are processes through which modernity reacts to itself, to its own, self-​made problems.

Notes 1. The process is analogous to what Habermas (1985, p. 325) calls the “colonization of the lifeworld by systemic imperatives.”

456    Eric Mangez and Alice Tilman 2. The full quote reads as follows: “how and with what repercussions and counter movements the system of education’s societal environment can handle the socialization and education in schools” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 32). The notion of “the system of education’s societal environment” refers to two “overlapping domains”: the family and the economy. 3. For a history of the movement, see, for example, Collom & Mitchell, 2005; Gaither, 2017; Knowles et al., 1992; Murphy, 2013; Stevens, 2003; Van Galen, 1988. 4. Already in 1988, Mayberry suggested distinguishing four types of homeschoolers: “religious ideologues,” “New Ager ideologues,” “academic pedagogues,” and “social-​relational pedagogues.” Pitman (1987) contrasted three types: “religious,” “progressive,” and “academic”; more recently, Gaither (2017) distinguished among “sectarian,” “romantic,” and “pragmatic.” Other categorizations focus instead on the circumstances in which homeschooling decisions are made. Kostelecká (2010), for example, differentiates between “devoted” parent educators, who opt for homeschooling out of conviction, and parents who turn to it because of particular circumstances, while Lois (2013) differentiates between “first choicers” (mothers who see homeschooling as a logical extension of their commitment to stay at home with their young children) and “second choicers” (default choices in the face of what is considered to be unsatisfactory educational provision). As Bongrand and Glasman (2018) rightly note, homeschoolers include families whose parents are in fact “school seekers” but who, for various reasons, do not find school provision satisfactory to them.

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Pa rt I I

P OL IC Y C HA L L E N G E S A N D I M P L IC AT ION S OF G L OBA L P R E S SU R E S ON NAT IONA L E DU C AT ION SYST E M S

In trodu ction to Pa rt I I Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend

Global, National, and Local Scales of Governance in Education Policy Education is a policy field dominated by political contestation and politically salient reforms at the global, national, and local levels of government. It is an area of state activities permeated by a constant struggle for public resources, and power among actors who hold different ideas and interests. These domestic conflicts shape the institutional framework within which globalized public policy reforms are then produced by international organizations and national institutions. We, therefore, need to simultaneously capture the national, local developments and global levels of education governance. This is why we do not depart a priori from a one-​fits-​all shared understanding of globalization, but we develop a pluralistic and transdisciplinary approach to the question of global policy reforms. Moving on from the efforts of leading social theorists to conceptualize the process of globalization within a holistic framework that can be generalized to a wide population of cases globally, Part II of the Handbook analyzes the political and institutional factors that contribute to the substantive formulation and adoption of global policy reforms in education and their embeddedness at the national and local levels of governance in advanced and developing countries around the world. Thus, Part II is concerned with discussing complexities and variations across countries, in order to illuminate the persistence of political contestation and analyze the impact of global norms and ideas on local institutions and national education systems. The chapters engage with the complex processes of globalization and their different analytical dimensions by analyzing some of the most compelling political questions associated with key education reform agendas, emphasizing cross-​national variations in a comparative perspective, and the active role of different political contexts, actors, and strategies which rarely converge in a one-​fits-​all concept of globalization. Some chapters will highlight the cultural dimensions of globalization, while others will

462    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend focus on its economic ones. Globalization is used as a complex and multifaceted analytical tool that cannot be captured by one concept in isolation from the others. Thus, this Part II of the Handbook explores the political implications of globalization on national and local education policy systems and subsystems and their institutional transformations, in order to substantiate the resilience of the nation state as an independent policy space characterized by specific policy advice systems, and governance tools. As such, the focus of Part II is cross-​regional and seeks to highlight the importance of diverse political and historical contexts in the adoption and implementation of global education policy ideas. Some of the main research questions it seeks to address are as follows: To what extent has the adoption and implementation of global reform agendas resulted in homogeneous policies both across and within regions and countries? How do local education policy systems and institutions interact with the policies promoted by international organizations? What role do local actors such as teachers’ unions play in mediating reforms in diverse contexts? How do different levels of governance interact in the education policy space, which includes reforms? The chapters in Part II of this Handbook focus on public policy and governance issues, and they do so from diverse perspectives within the discipline of comparative politics and comparative public policy. Some chapters adopt a historical institutionalist approach, other chapters are concerned with the political economy of education policies and reforms, and another group of chapters focuses on the international relations dynamics behind education reforms advocated by international organizations. But all chapters in Part II pay due attention to the diverse political contexts, institutions, and actors that are central to understanding how education policy is implemented across regions, nation-​states, and within countries. From a methodological standpoint, the chapters in Part II show methodological pluralism and adopt diverse tools as part of their research strategies. We have valued diversity and pluralism foremost over the intellectual ideology that globalization is an irreversible force shaping global convergence. The authors in Part II of this Handbook use different entry points to analyze the interaction between globalization and education policy. Some chapters pay greater attention to economic globalization, while others concentrate mostly on political globalization. Both aspects of globalization are important in the case studies presented in the different sections and the diversity of the contributions aims to provide a broad and comprehensive analysis of the challenges that education policy faces in a globalized world. Global education policies promoted by international actors and organizations are filtered through national and local institutions that mediate global processes within countries, and domestic structures and policy systems. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries continue to vary widely in the public resources they invest in education and the organization of educational systems

Introduction to Part II    463 (e.g., stratification, tracking systems). School systems, for instance, are among the most resilient and stable institutions over time. In addition, there are also important variations within countries, especially in federal states such as Argentina, Brazil, and the United States. In Latin America, the implications of globalization and integration into the world economy are varied, and there is great divergence among subnational regions that are more or less globalized. The last section of Part II of the Handbook interrogates on the relationship among globalization, democratic governance, education policies, and investment in human capital in Latin America. The chapters adopt a multi-​level perspective to assess the challenges offered by globalization to education policies and education spending in developing countries. A multi-​level perspective means focusing both on initiatives undertaken by national states and by subnational or local governments, which are the administrative units in charge of education in many Latin American countries. Despite assertions that education policies are increasingly converging in a globalized world, Latin American countries vary widely in the resources they devote to education and the development of human capital. Some of the key research questions the chapters in this last section address are as follows: How do local power and globalization interact to produce different governance and policy outcomes? What determines local spending in education and the development of human capital? Do greater linkages to the globalized economy have effects on democratic governance, the development of human capital, and, specifically, education spending? What is the role of ideas and ideology in the implementation of subnational policies aimed at developing human capital? The chapters in this section attend to the relationship between the globalization of local economies and the development of human capital (with a specific focus on education spending), and address these research questions from a plurality of methodological perspectives. Paola Mattei has taken the editorial lead for Sections IV, V, VI, and VII of Part II, and Jacqueline Behrend has taken the lead on Section VIII.

Section IV: International Actors and Education Policy Globalization is not a new concept in international and comparative education. Policy diffusion in the field of education promoted by international organizations such as UNESCO, the World Bank, the OECD, and others, hasve had a lasting impact on various dimensions of policy reforms around the world. The chapters in this section analyze the role of the OECD and international organizations in shaping global education policy, investigating the policy goals, and instruments used to shape education policy. Two major trends will emerge: the economistic-​oriented actors added education as a

464    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend field to their portfolio, and education-​orientated international organizations with a regional focus flourished. Martens, Niemann, and Krogmann (Chapter 22)’s contribution provides a mapping of how many and what types of international organizations work on education policy. They suggest that there has been an expansion of education competences within international organizations, drawing upon examples from the OECD and the World Bank, and others. Both organizations adopted the field of education to promote economic growth. Ydesen and Enemark (Chapter 23) argue that for decades the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has played a pivotal role in shaping education worldwide; both in relation to member-​states and non-​member states. Research has amply demonstrated how nation states and domestic education institutions have transformed themselves in the image of global reforms, often orchestrated and facilitated by the OECD. Global governance processes have created key reference points for education worldwide in the shape of data, indicators, values, problem solutions, and even ideologies. Nevertheless, national education systems and local education practices remain diverse and complex. Therefore, research into the workings of global education requires analytical sensitivity to the interactions and intermeshing relations among local, national, and global agents, instruments, knowledge, data, and policies populating and constituting spaces. Starting from this insight and drawing on archival sources from the OECD archive in Paris, the United States National Archive in Washington, DC, and the Brazilian National Archive in Brasilia, this chapter investigates the interactions and intermeshing relations in education between the OECD and two federal states— the United States, a​ member state, a​ nd Brazil, a​ non-​member state—​​in a historical and comparative perspective. The United States was a key agent in the transition of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) to the OECD in 1961, whereas Brazil established close relations with the OECD in education in the late 1990s. Looking across time and space creates a methodological opportunity of identi­ fying recurring features and mechanisms in the trajectories of the very engine room of global education. Increasing knowledge about historical contingencies, a historical approach can create awareness of the historical constructs of today’s education policies that otherwise seem to operate in a naturalized way according to an inherent logic. Grek (Chapter 24) explores the transnational governance of education. Her contribution discusses the interactive visual rankings produced by the OECD, the World Bank, UNESCO, and the Gates Foundation as measurement tools. She argues that the increasing pressures for “decolonizing” education influence the visualization of data. The overall argument is that data visualization is a powerful tool of world-​making.

Introduction to Part II    465

Section V: The Responses of National Education Systems to Global Pressures Education policies and reforms both at the global and local levels are embedded in institutional frameworks and political processes characterized by struggles among actors for power and resources to achieve competing goals. Policy making in the field of education remains politically contested and characterized by national policy subsystems. The nation state and domestic politics has been the predominant framework for analyzing education policy developments until recently. Does globalization really matter for national education systems? The chapters in this section focus on the contemporary challenges to the relationship between education and the state, and policy advice systems and national institutions. Central to the investigation is an analysis of how globalization has transformed, if at all, existing educational institutions and systems. The chapters in this section aim at developing an empirically based understanding of whether national systems are resilient and possibly globalization matters less than claimed by grand social theorists. Instead of taking a benign view of the relationship between the global and the national, the chapters will shed light on the complexity of the challenges posed to education by global scripts, ideologies, and the variations across countries. The programmes led by the OECD, such as the Program in International Student Assessment (PISA), are used by national policy makers as a way to legitimize national reforms under the guise of promoting evidence-​based decision-​making. International policies can serve as policy-​lever in national education reforms, and thus context shapes policies. Volante (Chapter 25) shows that since the initial administration of the Program in International Student Assessment (PISA), governments have increasingly turned their attention to the policy implications stemming from this global benchmark measure. Educational jurisdictions such as Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, and more recently Singapore, at various points in time, have been internationally lauded for their high achievement and touted as global reference societies by policymakers wishing to emulate their relative success. Yet, questions and concerns remain regarding the undue influence and policy recommendations promoted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This chapter explicates some of the dominant political narratives as well as sources of contestation attributed to PISA that have shaped global, transnational, and national education governance agendas. Overall, the chapter provides a critical analysis of the policy influence of PISA. Many scholars and observers have assumed that globalization triggers convergence in many areas, including education policy and systems. Yet, while some change has happened, the central elements of countries’ education systems have been relatively

466    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend unaffected by globalization. The chapter by Garritzman and Garritzman (Chapter 26) explains this inertia, pointing at the politics of education. Taking a historical institutionalist perspective, the chapter shows that education systems created positive feedback effects generating path dependencies which make education systems increasingly resilient to change. A review and discussion of recent research underpins this reasoning, identifying three mechanisms, through public opinion, interest groups, and political elites, respectively. Creating and diffusing knowledge about policies represents a challenge for both academics and practitioners. Galanti (Chapter 27) presents the state of the art on the topic. The literature has recently focused on this issue by proposing to view not the single advisor, but the policy advisory systems, intended as the systems of actors who deliver policy advice from within and from outside institutions in a given policy sector. These trends are also visible in the globalization of education policies, which creates pressures for policy diffusion, borrowing, or learning on local policy makers. This chapter aims at presenting the characteristics of policy advisory systems in education policies emerging in comparative perspective, with a particular focus on the OECD and the European countries, and at proposing a typology that considers how policy advice in education might be shaped as an interaction between domestic and international actors in a globalized world. The chapter by Tolo (Chapter 28) illuminates the formation and development of the Norwegian National Quality Assessment System (NQAS) and how the actors have met this. The NQAS was established in 2004, in the wake of mediocre results from the PISA tests in 2001 and recommendations from the OECD. However, the analysis shows that the efforts to streamline the accountability system in line with OECD’s advice have not shown to be successful in the Norwegian context due to culturally embedded factors that influence teachers and schools’ work. These emphasize equality, trust in teachers, high participation in decision-​making processes from different stakeholders, cross-​party agreements, and decentralization. Instead, it seems that the need to professionalize the teaching profession is what is emphasized by strong stakeholders in the system and that these ideas are gaining ground.

Section VI: The Massification of Secondary Education One of the fundamental questions that the chapters in this section address is as follows: How are transnational norms and global policy programmes institutionalized by local and domestic policy makers? Can we argue that convergence in the conception of equality among secondary pupils, and more generally, of education policy globally eliminates national and local political contestation? The chapters investigate

Introduction to Part II    467 empirically these questions with original data, with a special focus on secondary schooling and the reforms of massification and extension of access to secondary pupils. It emerges that not one model of access to mass education existed and that education inequality remains a highly diversified and contested notion and policy across countries. Besche-​Truthe, Seitzer, and Windzio (Chapter 29) investigate the diffusion of the institution of mass education. They focus on the following research question: What effects do networks of cultural and colonial linkages have on the emergence of national mass education systems? The study applies social network analysis and network diffusion models in order to assess the impact of the expansion of mass education in 156 countries around the world from 1880 to 2010. Gingrich, Giudici, and McArthur (Chapter 30) analyze original data from the European Value Survey to explore the patterns resulting from the policy choices of political parties and organized interests across advanced democracies in these three domains as well as the political determinants underlying these choices. In the post-​ war period, the focus of governments in advanced democracies generally shifted from generalizing basic education to staffing an increasing share of the population with more complex and specialized knowledge and skills through the expansion of secondary schooling. The demands of industrial development, heightened by the rise of the knowledge economy, meant policymakers across place and partisan divides have largely supported secondary expansion. However, despite these common trends lie ongoing differences across place in terms of the logic of the massification of secondary education, its ideal degree of differentiation among pupils and teachers, standardization of teaching and pedagogical practices, and the structure of control. Recent surveys on adult competences (IALS, PIAAC) show that competences are positively correlated with schooling and parental background. However, the institutional differences across countries mediate the impact of these variables, thus leading to less/​more egalitarian distributions of competences as well as to difference in the gradient of competences on employment probability and earnings. Cappellari, Checchi and Ovidi (Chapter 31) exploit existing data sets (among which the one proposed by Braga et al., 2013) to explore the varieties of educational systems, distinguishing them between inclusive and selective according to whether they are associated to less/​more dispersed distribution of competences, once one controls for schooling and parental background. Typical reform indicators (that are time varying and can therefore be associated to different age cohorts) include duration of compulsory schooling, age of secondary school tracking, school autonomy, central examination, and student financial aid. In the chapter by Ballarino and Panichella (Chapter 32), the authors propose that the Italian case illustrates the relations between expanding participation to education and educational inequality, on one side, and returns to education, on the other side. Theoretically, they rely on the OED triangle, the standard framework by which

468    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend stratification research addresses issues of equality/​inequality of opportunities, and refer to the debate counterposing modernization theory, according to which the expansion of education is part of a societal movement towards a more inclusive and just society, and reproduction theory, which to the contrary maintains that education, however expanded, is a key tool for the maintenance of opportunity hoarding and social closure. Empirically, they use a brand new data set deriving from the harmonization of a number of high-​quality surveys, thus giving to the analyses more statistical power and thus better reliability, particularly concerning trends over time.

Section VII: Globalization of Higher Education and Science The globalization of higher education institutions and science has been a sustained and well-​documented policy process, often taken to represent the irreversible influence of normative ideas, such as the use of world rankings, performance metrics, and other global governance instruments. It is often the case that scholarly accounts are about either/​or logic of relations between the global context and national institutions. The nation state seems to be unravelling and destined to a marginal role in the global governance of education. Yet, science policy continues to be nationally funded and driven. There has been no fundamental destabilization of the nation-​state, as a result of globalization of higher education and increased international mobility. Any binary dichotomy between the state and the globalized world has not helped the understanding of the relations among the global, national, and local scales. The chapters in this section look beyond the global versus national framework and contribute theoretically and empirically to a new definition of globalization, whereby globalization is not a zero-​sum game. As argued by Kariya (Chapter 33), a perceived stage of modernity in any given society produced a cognitive framework to understand globalization. In order to understand different pathways to modernity, we have moved away from Eurocentric understandings. The impact of globalization on education policy is related to the question of how each society understands modernity in a global political-​economic context. Kariya argues that Japan is among a few non-​Western countries to have experienced both “catch-​up” (with the West) and what might be called a “post-​catch-​up modernization.” The two phases of modernization, in a sense, represent and reflect how a society has responded to the globalizing world. Undergoing these two stages of distinct social transformation, Japanese society has encountered difficulties in making a smooth transition from catch-​up to post-​catch-​up modernity in the “global era.” This is particularly clear in the field of education. In this chapter, he places these Japanese

Introduction to Part II    469 experiences in a global context, and discusses what implications they have for sociological research on education as well as what theoretical contributions such a lens can contribute to recent debates on modernity and globalization. To explicate this argument, Kariya focuses on policy discourses related to education reforms in Japan. Japan is a typical case of a “late” modernizing country, one which intended to design and establish a “modern” education system rapidly and extensively, where modernity has been understood and interpreted distinctively in the lately developed society, different from advanced “Western” modern nations. The Japanese experience undergoing the transition from the catch-​up to the post-​ catch-​up modernity is outstanding as a case of reflexive modernity in education in accommodating to rapid globalization. Discourse analyses of policy documents reveal that Japan’s experiences indicate that reflections in modernity are influenced not only by their perceived past achievements but also by their perceptions of what is sacrificed underneath the achievements during a catching up modernization. Encountering the transitional stage to the post-​catch-​up modernity, political leaders began regarding the Japanese education as a constraint, one preventing the development of new competences and skills necessitated in the global era. This is because the education system and practices established under the catch-​up are believed to sacrifice latent competences and skills to develop due to exam-​driven and uniform education. To what extent have the reforms in this second stage effectively attained the policy goals? Have any side-​effects of reforms emerged and how? The outcomes of reforms are dependent upon how accurately the diagnosis is made and how treatment is provided appropriately and sufficiently in the transition to post-​catch-​up development. Thus, in his chapter, he examines how goals of post-​ catch-​up education reforms are socially constructed by leaders’ (mis)cognitions of globalization, which he argues are influenced by their experiences in the two stages of modernization. Along with communications, Marginson (Chapter 34) suggests that higher education and research are among the most globalized sectors and continued so in the decade after 2010 when there was a partial retreat from globalization of the political economy. In science the global system has arguably become primary in terms of knowledge formation, though the national scale remains highly determining in institutional higher education. The chapter discusses the main features of globalization in higher education and science (global systems, global connections, and global diffusion) and reviews the relationship between the global science system and the connected national science systems. It finishes with a discussion of scale and its materiality, and reflects on the potential contribution of plural scalar perspectives and Amartya Sen’s transpositional analytical framework to understandings of higher education. National science systems have become embedded in global science, and countries do everything they can to harness global knowledge to address national economic

470    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend needs. However, Kwiek (Chapter 35) argues that accessing and using the riches of global knowledge can occur only through scientists. Consequently, the research power of nations relies on the research power of individual scientists. Their capacity to collaborate internationally and to tap into the global networked science is key. The constantly evolving, bottom-​up, autonomous, self-​regulating, and self-​focused nature of global science requires deeper understanding; and the best way to understand its dynamics is to understand what drives academic scientists in their work. The author is particularly interested in the contrast between global science as a largely privately governed and normatively self-​regulating institution and global science as a contributor to global collective public goods. The idea that science remains state-​driven rather than curiosity-​driven is difficult to sustain. In empirical terms, the chapter describes the globalization of science using selected publication, collaboration, and citation data from 2000 to 2020. The humanities increasingly diverge from social sciences in terms of the collaboration mix (with the share of single authorship exceeding 50% in the most advanced economies). Humanities emerge from the research as non-​collaborative and non-​internationally collaborative, with powerful implications for such metrics as output and citations at the micro-​level of individual academics. The globalization of science implies also two different processes in two different system types: the growth of science in the Western world is almost entirely attributable to internationally co-​ authored publications; its growth in the developing world, in contrast, is driven by both internationally co-​authored and domestic publications. Global network science opens incredible opportunities to new arrivals—​countries as well as institutions and research teams. The global system is embedded in the rules created by scientists themselves and maintained as a self-​organizing system, and nation-​states have another major level to consider in their science policies: the global level. Kwiek suggests that globalization of science provides more agency, autonomy, collegiality, and self-​regulation to scientists embedded in national science structures and involved in global networks. China has invested significant public resources in the huge expansion of higher education which started in 1990. Higher education reforms have also embraced privatization, to a limited extent, and the internationalization of its higher education institutions. Tuition fees have been raised significantly in China, as shown by Mok Ka Ho, Ke, and Tien in their chapter (Chapter 36). With a strong conviction to transform the country and prepare its people to cope with the growing challenges of the globalizing market, the Chinese government has actively increased more opportunities for higher education. The higher education system in China has experienced the processes of massification and transnationalization, especially when the Chinese government has tried to diversify its higher education provision through non-​state sector providers, including overseas partners setting up branch campuses. The chapter sets out against the broad political economy context to examine critically how the Chinese government has responded to the growing influences of globalization by internationalizsing and trasnationalizing its higher education. More

Introduction to Part II    471 specifically, this study examines the challenges and policy implications when higher education experiences internationalization and transnationalization in China. The key point is that globalization has intensified inequalities in China on the job market in an unexpected way. Massification has failed to provide equal access for the low socio-​economic status students. Tilak (Chapter 37) provides his insights into the most recent higher education reforms in India, focusing on the 2020 National Education Policy reform. He argues this is a path-​breaking legislation given the path dependency of inertial approaches. After decades of neglect, higher education in India began receiving public attention. Apart from continuing problems relating to quantitative expansion, quality, and inequalities, the system also faces serious challenges with shortage of teachers, public funds, governance, and a rapidly growing commercially motivated private sector. The unforeseen crisis caused by COVID-​19 added further problems to higher education. Reforming of higher education has been on the public agenda for quite some time: Some reforms have already been introduced, some are at the stage of discussions and deliberations; and the need for a search for new and innovative measures is also being realized. Tilak’s chapter provides a critical review of some of the recent reforms introduced and the reforms that are being proposed in the most recent years. One of the main objectives is to increase the enrolment ratio to 50%. Currently it is 25%, and this is inadequate. The chapter by Ollssen (Chapter 38) starts by considering 20th-​century attacks on the idea of the public good from liberal quarters: from social choice theory, public choice theory, and from political liberalism, with reference to Kenneth Arrow, James Buchanan, Joseph Schumpeter, and John Rawls. Despite a prolonged attack against ideas of the good from liberal economists and political thinkers, spanning the period from the 1930s to the end of the 20twentieth century, the chapter argues that the concept of public good needs rehabilitating as a political concept. The concept of “self-​interest” that guided the liberal economists, and the ontology of individualism that underpinned Rawls’s writings, have not proved adequate to understanding politics and the logic of collective action in terms of which politics necessarily operates. The chapter argues that new models of science which gained ascendancy from the start of the 20twentieth century, as well as poststructuralist ideas, can assist in a reconceptualization of the idea of public good to guide politics, accommodate liberty and diversity, and overcome liberal objections.

Section VIII: Latin America: Local Power and Globalization The idea of focusing on one world region in particular has the aim of zooming in on how the challenges mentioned in the chapters in the previous sections of Part II of

472    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend this Handbook play out in developing countries that share some common historical and contextual factors but differ in how global policies are applied. Latin America is a vast and diverse region where, from a political perspective, globalization has involved pressures from international organizations for the adoption of global policies and from an economic perspective, globalization continues to signify the insertion of Latin American countries into the global economy through the export of commodities. These two perspectives raise different sets of questions and policy responses. Globalization occurred in most Latin American countries alongside the process of democratization and, in some cases, decentralization. This section interrogates on the relation among globalization, democratic governance, and education policies and focuses on three main areas of inquiry: (a) a long-​term perspective of education policies in the region as a whole; (b) education reforms and contestation; (c) education inequality, and variation in education spending and human capital investment within countries (i.e., at the subnational/​regional level). By focusing on actors, processes, and contestation, the section highlights the challenges that education reforms face in different contexts. As noted earlier, policy convergence does not eliminate national and local contestation, and the case studies in this section show how similar policies interact with different sets of actors and processes both across countries and within countries, producing different outcomes. The chapters in this section include case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. The first chapter by Laurence Whitehead (Chapter 39) lays the groundwork for an understanding of the long-​term historical development of education systems in Latin America. Whitehead argues that three important characteristics of Latin American realities are heterogeneity, informality, and inequality. The chapter points out that formal education is regarded as one of the primary functions and achievements of the nation-​state, and to the extent that many Latin Americans are still rather poorly served by public education, this can be seen as an indicator of state weakness or inadequacy. Some of the region’s countries devote great efforts to education and deliver impressive results, but overall, performance is uneven. As the pandemic has shown, few schoolchildren in the region are being equipped to operate competitively in today’s increasingly digitalized world. This is not to deny the long-​term progress of Latin American educational provision, especially since the second half of the 20th century, but, at the same time, the chapter by Whitehead shows that educational results in the region have been patchy, inadequate, fragile, and subject to numerous setbacks. Cuenca, García and Schneider et al. (Chapter 40) provide a paired comparison of reforms to teacher careers in Colombia and Peru. In the early 21st century, Colombia was one of the first countries in Latin America to devise a major, meritocratic reform to teacher careers. However, the reform applied only to new teachers, and their numbers grew slowly, reaching around half of teachers by 2020. Reforms in Peru started slowly in 2001. The two reforms were largely viewed as a success story, and the authors argue that critical to both reform successes was consistent policy implementation by a

Introduction to Part II    473 series of different technocratic ministers of education, combined with a muted union opposition. The chapters by Behrend on Argentina (Chapter 41), and Batista and Dutt-​Ross on Brazil (Chapter 42) scale down to the subnational level, which is the level of government that is mostly responsible for the implementation of education policy in both countries. Globalization in Latin America occurred alongside the dual processes of democratization and decentralization, which delegated authority and resources to subnational governments over key policies such as education and health. Decentralization gave rise to important variation in the quality of services offered to citizens of different localities, while democratization also spread unevenly across regions (Behrend and & Whitehead, 2016). The insertion of different subnational units into the global economy varies greatly across and within Latin American countries, and over the last decade it has to a great extent been linked to the commodity boom and primary exports. Many globalized industries are enclave economies or economies that do not rely on specialized local human capital (e.g., mining) or are not human capital intensive (soya production). Globalization has not had a homogeneous impact across the region and although the implementation of global education policies has been promoted by national governments, in federal countries, national policies are implemented by subnational governments. This can lead to selective implementation (Brinks, Levitsky & Murillo et al., 2019) in some cases or may show variations in the contestation surrounding national policies. The chapters on Argentina and Brazil show how education spending varies within these two countries despite national policies and legislation that specify the budget that each subnational unit is required to destine to education. In Argentina, despite an education financing law that compelled all provinces to increase education spending, the chapter by Behrend (Chapter 41) shows that compliance with this norm has been heterogeneous. Although education spending increased from 2005, by 2018 it had stagnated or even decreased in many provinces. And, perhaps surprisingly, the richest district (the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires) is the district that has seen the greatest decline in investment in education. The uneven implementation and enforcement of education norms in Argentina shows that education remains a highly contested policy area. The chapter by Batista and Dutt-​Ross on Brazil (Chapter 42) also shows the significant variation in education spending that exists across states. Although the Brazilian Constitution stipulates relatively high minimum spending thresholds in education for all states, subnational variation exists. The authors highlight that, even in a globalized context, the socioeconomic characteristics of subnational units (states) play a role in determining the level of spending in education and, thus, in education policy more generally. The chapter by Bleynat and Monroy-​Gómez-​Franco on Mexico (Chapter 43) addresses a fundamental question for developing countries: Does economic globalization reward education? Since the 1990s, Mexican governments have invested

474    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend substantial resources and policy efforts in the education sector, and the result has been a significant increase in the level of education attainment at the aggregate level. However, the chapter shows that education coverage and quality remain highly uneven within Mexico, and there are major gaps that require urgent policy attention. Moreover, despite greater investment in education, the authors show that globalizsation does not reward education, and it may even penalizse it in some cases. Mexico is now considered one of the most globalized economies in the world. Yet, remarkably, rising education levels have failed to raise wages across the board. Bleynat and Monroy-​Gómez-​Franco (Chapter 43) suggest that Mexico’s insertion in global value chains has relied and continues to rely primordially on taking advantage of lower wages for any educational level. Today people with college degrees are paid less in real terms than they were 15 years ago. Over the same period, those with upper-​secondary, lower-​secondary, or primary education have seen their market incomes stagnate. Given how close wages are to subsistence level in Mexico, the authors argue, it is perhaps even more tragic from a welfare perspective. Despite the promise that education and globalization would reward the population with higher incomes, the authors find no evidence that either has improved living standards for Mexican workers. The chapter by Mizala and Schneider (Chapter 44) highlights the highly politicized and contentious nature of education in Chile since the transition to democracy in 1990, which included waves of student protests after 2006 and the election of a former student protest leader as president in 2021. The education system set in place by the Pinochet dictatorship left the new democracy with a market, full-​choice education system that was privatized, decentralized, largely unregulated, underfunded, and stratified. According to the authors, by the late 2010s, the market still existed but the education system was more regulated, centralized, better funded, and probably less stratified. In Chile, democracy increased pressure for quality as well as quantity in education. However, despite deep transformations in education policy, especially after 2014, education remains a contentious issue.

New Emerging Research Themes and Directions We would like to suggest three main new themes emerging inductively from the chapters in Part II, though the richness of the theoretical debates and empirical findings cannot be entirely captured here. The authors themselves will offer their insights in each chapter about future developments and new research agendas without us wishing to impose them on the contributions in this part of the volume. The first theme is that the existing scholarly debates on globalization in the field of education, but not only, have emphasized the normative and ideational forces sustaining the

Introduction to Part II    475 policy diffusion of concepts and ideas that travel from one jurisdiction to another, from one educational system to a different one, overlooking the substantive and differentiated policy effects at local and subnational levels of governance. The global versus the nation-​state dichotomy has analytical limitations, corroborated empirically by the chapters in Part II. This is no longer a fruitful framework because the global, national, and local scales of education policy are intertwined and interdependent in distinct ways. At the heart of the globalization literature there is the attempt to explain the increasing similarities of education policy outputs adopted around the globe, so-​called convergence of global scripts (Mattei, 2014). We have learned that global world rankings and performance-​based accountability in the higher education sector represent a good example of such policy convergence. Furthermore, the study of the massification of secondary schooling in Part II of this Handbook also indicates a convergence in the conceptions of equality among secondary pupils. The chapters in this part of the Handbook have presented original data and evidence that partly confirm the thesis of convergence of policy developments over time, especially in the early post-​war period in developed countries. Globalization matters, indeed, in the policy domain of education, but there is a further need for tracing historically the policy changes to see how they become institutionalized in each specific context (Milner, Mattei and Ydesen 2021). The second theme emerging from the chapters in this Part II of the Handbook is that convergence of transnational norms does not eliminate political contestation, at all levels of governance, be it international, national, or local. This is because global and transnational norms are institutionalized by local and domestic policy makers and stakeholders. The politics of education cannot be reduced to the top-​down implementation of global policies designed by international organizations. From implementation studies, we learn that the process of transforming ideas into programmes is divisive, politically contested, and resourceful in terms of the discretion given to street-​level bureaucrats (Hupe & Hill, 2021). A good example is the emergence of different models of pupilhood historically, as Gingrich, Giudici, and MacArthur argue in their contribution. This meant varying institutional developments of access to secondary education. What it means to be a secondary pupil, and what “equal status of pupil” means, remains highly contested, politically salient, and filtered through national and local institutions and political actors. The national scale of governance is inextricably intertwined with the global and local scales, not in a zero-​sum game; the global itself is shaped by national actors and their political strategies and interests. Therefore, global discourses of modernity through educational reforms cannot be taken to represent one model of development, and globalization cannot be reduced to a one-​fits-​all concept readily applicable across the world. The chapter by Kariya illuminates this point eloquently and develops a new conception of modernity and globalization from the study of Japan. Garritzman and Garritzmann also suggest that the key characteristics of countries’ educational systems have hardly changed since

476    Paola Mattei and Jacqueline Behrend the 1980s. In order to explain the resilience of educational institutions, they convincingly propose to focus on the policy feedback effects expected in education, which sustain the forces of path dependency (Pierson, 2014). The historical-​institutionalist argument is also presented by Ydesen and Ereman’s chapter on the ways in which OECD member countries use global reforms to legitimize domestic political agendas, as policy lever for domestic reform processes. Not only are global norms filtered through local institutions, but they can be influenced by local processes in unexpected ways. The comparative analysis between Brazil and the United States is indicative of such logics of relationships between the global and the local, which is far from being unidirectional. The chapters on Latin America also eloquently highlight such variation. Many Latin American countries adopted education reforms promoted by international organizations from the 1980s onwards and in the early 21st century, but the implementation of these reforms varied widely across countries. Even within countries education policy is applied unevenly and even selectively. Therefore, policy convergence does not necessarily imply convergence of outcomes. The third overarching theme emerging from the contributions of Part II pertains to the observation and analysis of the unintended effects of the globalization of higher education, in particular for countries such as China and India. The massification of higher education in China, as argued by Mok Ka Ho et al, has failed to provide the expected equal access for the low-​economic-​status students. The mushrooming in China of transnational higher education institutions has not produced equal opportunities for all. On the contrary, Sino-​foreign institutions charge very high tuition fees and produce inequalities in the transition to the labour market. In China, the gap between elite universities and the traditional ones has increased as a result of internationalization and globalization. Likewise, in India the internationalization of higher education institutions meant the entry of 385 new private universities in 2019. Many of these new providers are foreign universities setting up local campuses in India. The most recent 2020 National Education Plan, however, is path breaking in so far as it invites only a few universities from the top foreign ones to set up new campuses in India, in an attempt to limit the problem of rising inequalities. The Indian government has set a new ambitious objective for the enrolment rate to 50%. The cases of China and India show the pervasive and long-​lasting effects of globalization agendas at the national levels and the new inequalities produced by that process. All the chapters have been written during the first four waves of the COVID-​19 global pandemic, and thus it was too early for authors to assess the long-​lasting effects of the health care emergency on the global education field. Authors have decided not to engage in speculative writings about the future of society after COVID-​19, and instead the majority of chapters takes a historical and long-​term institutional perspective. However, the pandemic has left its mark on the education system in developing countries. School closures and, unequal access to technology and to the Internet have reinforced existing inequalities and have left part of the student population in developing countries out of the education system. As the

Introduction to Part II    477 chapter by Whitehead shows, according to UNICEF, by the end of 2020, 87% of the 160 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean had been out of the classroom for 8 months, and on average had lost 174 school days because of COVID-​19, as compared to a world average of 40 days (UNICEF, 2020).1 The long-​term effect of COVID-​19 on education systems poses challenges that will need to be addressed by governments and policy-​makers.

Note 1. Education on hold (New York: UNICEF, November 2020).

References Behrend, J., &and L. Whitehead, L. (2016). Illiberal Practices: Territorial Variance within Large Federal Democracies. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press). Brinks, D., S. Levitsky, S., &and M. V. Murillo, M. V. (2019). Understanding Insti­ tutional Weakness: Power and Design in Latin American Institutions. (New York: Cambridge University Press). Hupe, P., &and M. Hill, M. (2021). Implementing Public Policy. (London: Sage). Mattei, P. (2014). University Adaptation in Difficult Economic Times. (New York: Oxford University Press). ISBN 9780199989393. Milner, A., P. Mattei, P., & and C. Ydesen, C. (2021). “Governing education in times of crisis: State interventions and school accountabilities during the COVID-​19 pandemic” European Educational Research Journal, 20(4), 520–​539, ISSN: 1474-​9041. Pierson, P. (2014). Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. UNICEF. (2020, November). Education on hold. UNICEF.

Section IV International Organizations and Education Policy

22

The Expansi on of Edu cation i n a nd Across Internat i ona l Organiz at i ons Kerstin Martens, Dennis Niemann, and David Krogmann

Introduction Today, international organizations (IOs) are significant actors in education policy. They analyze education policies, develop normative guidance, and provide financial support for education projects. Not only do IOs compile education data and make recommendations to their members, but they also distribute concepts and ideas that become a global standard. Simultaneously, education systems maintain national economic competitiveness in world markets to prepare their graduates for global competition in labor markets. Thus, national education systems need to respond to new challenges posed by globalization processes to keep up the pace in a constantly growing, knowledge-​based economy that views education as the key to growth. Globalization understood as “the intensification of economic, political, social, and cultural relations across borders” (Holm & Sørensen, 1995, p. 1) has put IOs at the helm of international education policy. IOs, in this respect, are often viewed as a highly valued source for triggering and shaping national reform processes in education. Beyond single or comparative case studies of few prominent IOs in the realm of education policy (e.g., Zapp, 2020), we know little about how many and what types of IOs work on education policy. Our knowledge on the population of education IOs Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)–project number 374666841 – SFB 1342

482    Kerstin Martens, Dennis Niemann, and David Krogmann remains limited. How many IOs deal with education, and how do they distribute across the globe? What is their main approach to education, and what views on education are they promoting? By applying an organizational ecology approach in this contribution, we examine how education as a policy field has spread across and within IOs over time. In this chapter, we explore the population of education IOs to “map” the world of education IOs and to analyze its topography. We argue that the field has substantially expanded over time to 30 IOs that deal with education policy today. It is characterized by three types of education IOs: globally operating IOs that claim global validity of their education programs, regional IOs which are limited to a certain geographic area, and transregional IOs, where membership is bound by common cultural or religious characteristics. We explore how the distribution of education IOs developed over time. While education has always been a relevant issue for some IOs based on their mandate, others gradually adopted the topic and integrated it into their spectrum of activities. We find two trends that stand out: first, economistic IOs, particularly internationally operation development banks, have discovered education as a valuable field of activity, and secondly, education policy is a field where regionally operating IOs exist, often next to each other.

The Organizational Ecology of Education IOs—​A Theoretical Lens The analytical approach of organizational ecology can be applied as a heuristic framework for examining the population of IOs in education. Adapted to the social sciences most prominently by Hannan and Freeman (1977), the approach illuminates environmental and institutional factors that influence demographic changes in a population. Organizational ecology is marked by two complementary dimensions: organizational environment and intrinsic features (Abbott et al., 2016). The organizational environment dimension addresses how the institutional field is constituted and acknowledges externalities of the IOs’ surroundings. The intrinsic features approach emphasizes endogenous factors of IOs to explain their capability of acting within a given institutional environment and explores factors which induce change or account for change. Hence, combining both could be seen as a promising analytical tool for developing a framework for examining developments and changes in the realm of (education) IOs. Thus, from the perspective of organizational ecology, one focuses on both the constitutive features of the organizational field and the characteristics of IOs within this field. The concept of organizational environment is also related to the sociological concept of an “organizational field” and refers to what may be called topography. It comprises the underlying characteristics of the field, the density of relevant actors

The Expansion of Education    483 operating within it, and their relationship to each other. This concept illustrates the assortment of aggregated actors, which constitute an institutional environment. Thus, a population is marked by its degree of diversity. This means that in a highly diverse field, organizations can populate different niches within a community without interfering with each other. Also, the density of a population must be considered when analyzing an organizational field. IOs may also populate and cultivate a niche in policy issues and coexist without disturbing the vital interests of states or other IOs. If the field allows for specialization, more actors can find their niches and coexist without severe overlapping. While the organizational environment approach focuses on the interaction between IOs and their environment, the concept of intrinsic features emphasizes the institutional design of IOs, which shapes their behavior and determines how autonomous IOs act in an organizational field. On the one hand, it draws from rational choice concepts, such as the principal-​agent model (Hawkins et al., 2006; Nielson & Tierney, 2003), which implies the designers of IOs can actively influence the scope of possible actions of IOs. On the other hand, this approach is also congruent with approaches based on path dependency theories of historical institutionalism, which explains that the initial choices made by IOs may have long-​term effects on the future of the organizational development (North, 1990; Pierson, 2004). One important issue in this regard concerns the scope of issues covered. Two notions are commonly distinguished, namely comprehensive and policy-​specific concerns of IOs (Lenz et al., 2015). IOs with comprehensive scopes deal with more issue areas than those with specific policy concerns. Hence, comprehensive IOs could link issues of education policy with other topics in their portfolio, for instance economics or social security. Since IOs with comprehensive thematic scopes are designed with autonomous decision-​making, they can easily expand to differing policy fields without an imposition from member states. This “mission-​ creep” is neither against the member states’ interests nor does it violate their authority over the IO. Taken together, the organizational environment and the intrinsic features have to be analyzed in tandem when assessing IO behavior within a given population. This means that exogenous developments enable some IOs which have specific intrinsic features to adapt more swiftly to a transformed environment. We note, for instance, that the leading economic paradigm shifted from Keynesianism to neoliberalism between the 1970s and early 1980s. This implies a different environment for education IOs since the development of education programs and their underlying ideas depends heavily on the disposition of the welfare state. Under Keynesianism, the regulatory input of states to their respective education system was prioritized over the controlling for the outcomes. With neoliberalism at the helm, investment in states’ education systems lessened in importance. Accordingly, IOs that already favored a neoliberal view or were able to switch from Keynesianism to neoliberalism were also inclined to expand their influence and significance in education policy. In other words, the institutional adaptability of IOs yields survival in competitive organizational fields.

484    Kerstin Martens, Dennis Niemann, and David Krogmann

Identifying the Population of “Education IOs” and Analyzing Its Topography Identifying and analyzing the population of active education IOs is neither an easy nor a straightforward task. What counts as an IO, and what counts as an education IO? For the purposes of setting boundaries, we look at “public” organizations, namely at IOs which are understood as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), in which states are the prime members. Although some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Gates Foundation, are financially strong and important players in the global education sphere, they were excluded from our analysis. Also, internationally operating think tanks, such as the Global Partnership for Education, are not part of our data set as states only function as donor countries and not as members. Similarly, intergovernmental organizations need to be distinguished from simple coalitions of states, such as the Education Reform Initiative of South Eastern Europe (ERISEE), which we also did not consider. Instead, we examine IOs based on the Yearbook of International Organizations (YIO) as well as the Correlates of War (COW) data set. Every IO was individually examined as to whether it refers to education as a field of activity. In our search, we included all IOs in the education sector which relate to school education (primary and secondary level) and/​or the tertiary education sector (higher education and vocational training). We define an IO as “education IO” if it maintains three complementary features regarding its policy programs, organizational structures, and desired scope. First, education must be mentioned in the IO’s programmatic mission statement as a designated task of the IO (be it in the IO’s preamble, founding treaty, amended treaties, or as one of its main aims as outlined in its current web presence). Second, it must have its own permanent organizational subdepartment, unit, or otherwise named structural component which specifically deals with issues of education or training. Third, the IO must address education policy issues. Hence, we exclude from our definition any IOs that deal with educational topics, such as teaching methods or coordinating scientific cooperation. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) also has an educational focus, but its activities mainly address the training of its own staff with regards to security issues. After reviewing the individual organizations, we identify a total of N =​30 organizations that form the population of active education IOs (Niemann & Martens, 2021), which we present in Figure 22.1. Education IOs differ regarding their geographical reach and their thematic scope. Both characteristics, however, are not mutually exclusive but overlap. Geographically, we can distinguish among globally, regionally, and transregionally operating IOs. The World Bank and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for example, are global education IOs. While the OECD is

The Expansion of Education    485 ASEF CBSS IFESCCO

EU CW

UNESCO

EFTA ALECSO

UNHCR

OEI

ILO

OECS

UNICEF

CARICOM

WB

ASEAN

UNASUR

AfDB

SEAMEO

SAARC

ECCAS

OAS

OECD

ADB

ABECS AU ICESCO

APEC

Mercosur IADB

Geographic Reach (Shape):

global

transregional

regional

Thematic Scope (Colour):

Multi-Purpose

Single-Purpose

Education

Economy

ABEGS: Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States, ADB: Asian Development Bank, AfDB: African Development Bank, ALECSO: Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization, APEC: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEF: Asia-Europe Foundation, AU: African Union, CARICOM: Caribbean Community, CBSS: Council of Baltic Sea States, CW: Commonwealth of Nations, ECCAS: Economic Community of Central African States, EFTA: European Free Trade Association, EU: European Union, IADB: Inter-American Development Bank, IFESCCO: The Intergovemmental Foundation for Educationa, Scientific and Cultural Cooperation, ILO: International Labour Organization, ICESCO: Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Mercosur: Southem Common Market, OAS: Organization of Ameraican States, OECD: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECS: Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, OEI: Organization f Ilbero-American States for Education, Science and Culture, SAARC: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, SEAMEO: Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization, UNASUR: Union of South American Nations, UNESCO: Uniterd Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNHCR: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNICEF: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, WB: World Bank

Figure 22.1  A world map of education international organizations.

clearly an IO with restricted membership criteria, that is, industrialized democracies, we classify it as a global education IO because its education activities are not exclusively provided to member countries, and the IO itself claims global validity in this field. Next to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), other United Nations organizations, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), or the International Labour Organization (ILO), are active on a worldwide scale. However, education is primarily dealt with by various regional IOs. Examples of such regional organizations include Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS), or the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). In some regions, such as Southeast Asia or Latin America, several education IOs exist in parallel. As a third category of education IOs, transregional organizations are comprised of member states sharing traits other than geographical proximity. Notable transregional IOs include the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO), in which membership is connected to Islam, and the Organization of Ibero-​American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI), which is made up only of “Iberophone” states. Regarding the thematic scope of the 30 IOs in our sample, seven IOs reflect education as a primary activity through their mandate and name. These organizations have been installed with the intended purpose of focusing mainly on education policy as a major and, in some cases, solitary founding mission. This group includes the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO), the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States (ABEGS), the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (ALECSO), the Intergovernmental Foundation for Educational, Scientific

486    Kerstin Martens, Dennis Niemann, and David Krogmann and Cultural Cooperation (IFESCCO), the OEI, and ICESCO. Except for UNESCO, none of these education IOs are globally active but work through a regional, cultural, or religious defined purpose. Most of the education IOs, however, cover several policy fields, with education being only one among many. This class comprises two subtypes. On the one hand, it is constituted by “multipurpose” IOs; that is, IOs that have a broader purpose, focusing on a wide scope of issue areas over a number of fields. Examples include the European Union (EU) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the African Union (AU), or the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). In multipurpose IOs, the founding members did not intend to specifically address educational policy Although several of them included education topics from the very beginning, many of them moved into the policy field at times long after their inception, making education part of their programmatic mission ex post. On the other hand, another group of education IOs are comprised of “specialized” or single-​purpose IOs, which have a primary mission other than education, like the UNHCR or the ILO. These IOs first and foremost focus on refugee protection and labor rights respectively. The introduction of education transformed their mission to involve education issues within the realm of a primary mandate. For example, organizations like the OECD or the World Bank, which were set up with a specific mission in economic development, have gradually expanded their work into the education field. Time-​wise, we identify a number of general trends in the education IO population over the last 70 years. These trends differentiate according to geographical reach and thematic scope. Both dimensions reveal a continuous expansion of education IOs. In terms of the organizational ecology approach, the population became denser and more diverse over time. Overall, the number of IOs working in education policy increased from a mere two organizations in 1945, namely the ILO and UNESCO, to thirty organizations in 2018. The course of this expansion is rather steady. Over the decades, the population of education IOs expanded incrementally, with no sharp turn at any point in time. By the mid-​1990s, the expansion slowed down and settled toward the end of the decade, with only two education IOs founded after 2005. This finding suggests that after a continuous growth and discovery of education as a significant field of IO activity over the last decades, the field is now saturated.

Economistic IOs—​From a Niche to the Entire Education Field Today, developments within the IO population regarding the thematic scope illustrate IOs with an original mandate in economic policy have become an important subgroup in the organizational field of education policy. As presented in Figure 22.2, almost one-​ third of today’s entire education IO population has a primary focus on economic issues.

The Expansion of Education    487 30 25 20 15 10 5 0